(1) The assurance of safe procedures . This has been an area of 
concern in the past, and has resulted in additional detail on 
facility certification, periodic inspections and monitoring 
being made available in the supplementary "Laboratory Safety 
Monograph." The question of uniform training and certification 
for R-DNA workers appears to be still open, however. The fact 
that many of these workers are molecular biologists, unused to 
and untrained in standard aseptic technique adds special urgency 
to this problem. Even when such training is part of the background 
of a laboratory worker, constant surveillance and specific 
requirements to cover individual kinds of laboratory prodecures 
are necessary. Indeed, even such high-containment facilities as 
Fort Detrick have suffered hundreds of laboratory- acquired 
infections with very pathogenic organisms. One of the first fruits 
of the concern over R-DNA research was the 1973 Biohazards 
Conference at Cold Spring Harbor. It was emphasized by CDC 
personnel at that very early date that their experience clearly 
indicated that the "education of laboratory workers in techniques 
and introduction of equipment with special safety features" was 
especially important in keeping laboratory acquired infections to 
a "minimum." I note in passing that that "minimum" is not by any 
means negligible. The use of a specially trained biohazards officer 
and the introduction of special laboratory safety guidelines in 
combination with high-containment facilities succeeded in reducing 
the incidence of laboratory- acquired infections by three- fourths , 
but that incidence still stands at 1 case/250 workers/year. When 
one considers the likely number of R-DNA workers and the much less 
[A-249] 
