not in our view carry a serious hazard, should proceed subject to the precautions 
recommended below and subject to the tiling of an experimental protocol with 
the GMAG. Work in other categories for which adequate higher degrees of 
containment are available should, subject to the advice of the GMAG. be 
encouraged, both for us intrinsic importance and to increase understanding of 
the techniques and of any associated hazards. We recommend that further 
work should be done on the development and characterisation of disabled 
organisms which will oiler an important safeguard against hazard and that any 
such organisms that arc developed should be made freely available to all 
workers in the held. 
1.7 We define in the remainder of our report and in the code of practice 
measures that we consider necessary to ensure that work proceeds as safely as 
possible. These include the provision of training, the involvement of local 
safety committees and biological safety officers, the establishment and operation 
of the GMAG and the application of a central code of practice, and could be 
put into early operation on a basis of voluntary co-operation by laboratories. 
W’e believe that these measures will provide a system to safeguard the public: 
the working of the system in practice will also enable the Government to con- 
sider the desirability of introducing statutory powers additional to existing 
powers, such as those in the Health and Safety at W'ork Act. 
1.8 We have of course been aware of consideration of this subject similar to 
our own in other countries, particularly at the National Institutes of Health in 
the United States of America, and within various international scientific 
organisations. We believe that our own proposals for categorisation of 
experiments are generally in line with those developing in the United States 
although we envisage that the central advisory body — the GMAG — in the 
United Kingdom should advise on all experiments in genetic manipulation 
wherever these are carried out. We support the view expressed in various 
places that there should be some international action to ensure widespread 
consultation and even co-ordination of principles on a world-wide basis, 
perhaps through the W'orld Health Organisation, which we understand has 
begun to consider the question. This course would be for the Government to 
pursue, but in the meantime we recommend that there should be no delay in 
implementing the system of advice and control which we believe to be necessary 
in the United Kingdom. 
2. CATEGORISATION OF EXPERIMENTS 
2.1 It isacentral feature of our recommendations that all experiments involving 
genetic manipulation should be considered by the Genetic Manipulation 
Advisory Group (GMAG). which will assess the hazards* and will categorise 
experiments according to the appropriate level of physical containment and 
other safety precautions. The basis for categorisation described below is one 
that leans on the side of caution and should reduce to manageable proportions 
the task of assigning suitable protective measures to particular experiments. 
We intend it as a guide to assist the initial deliberations of the GMAG and 
envisage that, with experience and as the field develops, the GMAG will be 
able to build up a body of "case law" against which to judge individual 
experiments. 
• We refer simply to "hazards” throughout the remainder of the report without repealing 
the point in paragraph 14. 
IV- 7 
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