- 6 - 
No presentation of either the arguments or the conclusions was pre- 
sented to this assemblage of the world's virologists in any workshop or 
meeting session. The existence of the report was not even announced in one 
of the plenary sessions. 
Yet now we find that U.S. national policy is being made based on this 
report of 29 individuals chosen in part by people interested in revision 
of the guidelines. The scientists in attendance were eminent virologists 
whose opinion carries considerable weight. I found myself in agreement with 
many of their conclusions, though at sharp odds with certain major points 
absent from the report. 
One of the most disturbing features is that the document reads far 
more like a position paper lobbying for one point of view, than an unbiased 
exploration of the possibilities. All possibilities of hazard, if brought 
up, are dismissed as "unlikely" "impossible to conceive" etc. One would 
never know from reading that most of the worlds virologists and bacteriologists 
study these organisms because certain of them are agents of human disease. 
Despite the fact that all the individuals were completely well 
meaning, the overall mechanism was the same; a governmental committee, 
(RAC) supposed to be operating democratically, draws conclusions based on 
the finding of a private committee, meeting behind closed doors, representing 
a narrow sampling of a wide range of views. 
A few examples of conclusions in the report open to question. The 
group "could not envisage a plausible risk set of circumstances whereby a 
risk to the community could develop". This is simply a statement about 
the limitations of a selected group of 27 virologists, not evidence about 
hazards. Thus the document concerns no discussion of the fact that some 
of the best described mechanisms for the generation of new viral pathogens 
is by rare recombinants between strains not normally reproducing in the 
same cells. Neither is there a substantial discussion of the role of defective 
particles in pathogenesis. Had their deliberations taken place before an 
open meeting of virologists, infectious disease, and public health personel, 
I believe the final document would have had a substantially different 
character. 
The document "Implementation of the U.S. EMBO-EMBO report", page 
33168 contains the extraordinary statement "The group felt that the only 
plausible way _E . coli K12 could gain entry into laboratory workers was by 
oral ingestion". In fact the data on both laboratory acquired infection 
and hospital acquired infection, indicates that aerosols, cuts, syringe 
punctures, are primary routes of bacterial infection. 
[A-300] 
