NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION 
WASHINGTON DC 20550 
October 17, 1978 
Dr. Donald Fredrickson 
Director, National Institutes of Health 
Bethesda, MD 20014 
Dear Don: 
The purpose of this letter is to develop more fully the NSF position on the proposed 
revised guidelines for recombinant DNA research. Since 1 did not take advantage 
of the opportunity to do this at the end of the recent Interagency committee 
meeting, I fear you may have the impression that I am satisfied with the procedures 
you described. This would be a false impression. 
I did not speak up at the end of the meeting for two reasons. First, I had already 
spoken longer and more critically than the representatives from the other agencies. 
Secondly, the final minutes of an Interagency committee meeting was neither the 
time nor the place to argue that the NSF has a different role and responsibility 
with respect to recombinant DNA research activity than most, if not all, of the 
other agencies represented at the meeting. Research and non research oriented 
agencies have different roles to play and different contributions to make with 
respect to implementing the guidelines. NSF support of research involving 
recombinant DNA techniques relative to that of the NIH is not trivial, but 
significant. Indeed, in this respect we differ from the other research oriented 
agencies. We have a large constituency to whom we have a responsibility. It is not 
obvious to me, why you do not recognize our special role and why you do not wish 
to share with us more meaningfully implementation of the technical aspects of the 
guidelines. 
In your telephone call to me in the morning of the day of the meeting you asked me 
to listen carefully to the "new" roles and responsibilities of RAC and the IAC 
before presenting the NSF position. I did listen carefully, but do not think your 
discussion of new "procedures" was responsive to Dr. Atkinson's letter regarding the 
[A-429] 
