request was denied in an administrative decision by the director 
of NIH and not even submitted to the advisory committee for 
further debate in its April 1-2, 1976 meeting in which final 
revisions of the guidelines were made. At this meeting, all of 
the outside comments had been distilled down to ten typewritten 
pages of questions for the consideration of. the recombinant DNA 
advisory committee, the same committee which had drafted the 
working version prepared early in 1976. Except for relatively 
minor changes in wording, the committee dealt summarily with 
the questions from the public, and the final version of the 
guidelines did not differ significantly from the version pre- 
pared prior to public input. 
The legislative-type hearing should consider the following 
issues which were not adequately considered in the NIH pro- 
ceedings which led to the promulgation of the guidelines: 
(a) Whether or not recombinant DNA research on any 
level should be permitted at this time in view 
of our present state of knowledge. 
(b) If some areas are to be permitted, what are they 
and what precautions are necessary to adequately 
protect the public and the environment? For 
example, what degree of physical containment 
should be considered adequate in light of 
human fallibility? 
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