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Coalition 
8. Ctorunq o& ArujmaZ Ce££ Tnojit> ^onming V.Lau&m 
The proposed revised Guidelines accept the recommendations of the 
"Ascot Conference" and have lowered containment levels for the cloning of 
animal cell transforming viruses (such as polyoma and SV 40) (p .33077) . This 
decision does not take into account the results of the Rowe-Martin risk assess- 
ment experiment with polyoma, preliminary results of which were reported at the 
1977 Falmouth Conference, but were not included in the published proceedings 
of the conference (Journal of Infectious Diseases, April 1978). 
The most recent summary of these experiments were reported by Wallace 
Rowe at the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee meeting of August 1-3, 1978. 
Briefly, it has been shown that polyoma DNA itself , de-proteinized , without a 
capsid (virus coat) can cause infection when lnj ected into the bloodstream or 
or fed into the colon of a mouse. Roy Curtiss, in a letter to Fredrickson 
dated April 12, 1977 stated that he believed that such experiments would not 
give positive results. This unexpected result of the risk assessment experi- 
ment has received no publicity apart from informal statements by the investiga- 
tors. 
The significance of the experiment lies in its demonstration that poly- 
oma DNA itself is an etiologic agent. Incorporated into a plasmid it is not 
infective, but if the plasmid is cleaved by a nuclease (which are ubiquitous) 
it is rendered infective . Thus one of the scenarios envisaged by critics of 
recombinant DNA research, i.e. that a disease-causing agent might be* carried to 
new ecological niches by such experimentation, is now close to realization. 
All that is required for such a result is the lowering of physical and biolog- 
ical containment for these experiments. Polyoma DNA in a capsid can thrive on- 
ly in intra-cellular environments; polyoma DNA in bacteria can thrive (and be 
[A-327] 
