Agenda item 6.6: Developments relating to the problem of safety in the handling of 
microorganisms and cells employed in research and in public health practice 
The ACMR received the report of a pre-ACMR meeting^ on the above subject, and endorsed 
the broad outlines of the report. The ACMR reaffirmed that WHO has a global responsibility 
for safety measures in microbiology, and that the issue of recombinant DNA research is only a 
part of a much larger problem area. One useful outcome of the recombinant DNA controversy 
was that it had focused attention on the field of laboratory safety as a whole. 
The participants were: 
ACMR Members 
Professor 0. G. Andjaparidze, Member of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR and 
Director, Moscow Institute for Research on Virus Preparations, Moscow, USSR 
Professor S. Bergstrom, Professor of Biochemistry, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden 
Professeur R. M. Fauve, D6partement de Biologie mollculaire, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France 
Sir Gustav Nossal, Director, The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, 
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia (Chairman) 
Temporary Advisers 
Dr M. M. Kaplan, Director-General, Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, Geneva, 
Switzerland 
Dr V. Sgaramella, Laboratorio di Genetica, Blochimica ed Evo luzionist ica del Consiglio 
Nazionale delle Ricerche, Pavia, and Professor of Molecular Biology, University of Milan, 
Italy 
Dr J. E. M. Whitehead, Deputy Director, Public Health Laboratory Service, Colindale Hospital, 
London, United Kingdom 
Representatives from other Organizations 
Dr Z. Bankowski, Executive Secretary, Council for International Organizations of Medical 
Sciences, Geneva, Switzerland 
Dr W. Emmett Barkley, Director, Office of Research Safety, National Cancer Institute, National 
Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA 
Miss S. Coates, Coomittee on Recombinant DNA Molecules, European Science Foundation, 
Strasbourg, France 
Dr J. Tooze, Secretary, Committee on Genetic Experimentation, International Council of 
Scientific Unions and Executive Secretary, European Molecular Biology Organization, 
Heidelberg, Federal Republic of Germany 
WHO Secretariat 
Dr K. BOgel; Dr H. C. Goodman 
VI-19 
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