8 
entific evidence -- on experimental data, or on scientific theories themselves 
grounded in scientific evidence. If there is no experimental data, the "judg- 
ment" -- whatever else it may be — is not scientific. 
With respect to the 1976 guidelines. Dr. Maxine Singer of the National 
Cancer Institute stated in testimony on March 15, 1977, before the House Sub- 
committee on Health and the Environment that: 
Yes; the guidelines were put together, of course, in the absence of a lot 
of the information one needs.... I am just stating that it has been slow 
and a lot of the information needed for the guidelines was not available. 
Therefore, the committee which advised the Director of NIH for the guide- 
lines had to make a certain number of judgments on insufficient facts and 
there are disagreements with the judgments that they made. If you take 
any particular recommendation in the guidelines, you will find knowledge- 
able scientists who feel that it is too stringent and you will find knowl- 
edgeable scientists who think that it is not stringent enough. 
There has been very little new data developed since then and the rule of pru- 
dence and the need for a margin of safety -- basic principles of environmental 
and health regulation -- should rule out relaxation of the guidelines until 
sufficient data is developed and the outstanding scientific questions resolved. 
Again, with respect to the 1976 NIH guidelines and the British Guidelines, it 
was stated in the Report and Recommendations of the Second Meeting of the Euro- 
pean Molecular Biology Organization Standing Advisory Committee on Recombinant 
DNA held in London on September 18-19, 1976, that: 
Both documents stress that, at present, there are no experimental data on 
which to base any objective estimates of the conjectured biohazards asso- 
ciated with recombinant DNA research. Schemes for the classification of 
experiments according to their conjectured biohazard are, therefore, arbi - 
trary . Nevertheless both groups have proposed categories of containment 
for particular classes of experiments which are based upon the phylogenet- 
ic distance between the organisms involved. It is the opinion of this 
committee that the containment procedures envisaged in the two reports are 
sufficient to ensure that in vitro recombinant DNA research continues un- 
der conditions that provide adequate safeguards. [Emphasis added.] 
The jump from the conclusion of arbitrariness, which is sound, to the conclu- 
sion of adequacy, is without logic. And the assumption concerning phylogenetic 
distance, upon which the NIH and British guidelines are based, itself has no 
[A-239] 
