58 
Biological containment refers to methods whereby organisms are 
weakened, so that, in the event of their escape from the laboratory, 
their survival is extremely improbable. The guidelines characterize 
three levels of impairment of a weakened laboratory strain known as 
E-coli K-12. 
The guidelines also provide an administrative framework for their 
implementation and a compendium of safety information. 
The guidelines require establishment of institutional bio-hazard 
committees for local review of recombinant DXA activities. 
A Recombinant DXA Advisory Committee, under the auspices of 
the National Institutes of Health, meets regularly to review and 
update the guidelines. At their May 15, 1977, meeting, the Advisory 
Committee issued the following statement : 
During this period the committee has become better in- 
formed about the general ecology and epidemiology of in- 
fectious microorganisms. Experiments have been reported 
showing that the incorporation of foreign DXA does not 
increase but rather tends to decrease the growth rate of micro- 
organisms, and this further contributes to the unlikelihood 
that cells earning recombinant DXA will survive in nature 
and produce harmful effects. Indeed, everything that we have 
learned has tended to diminish our estimate of risk. Neverthe- 
less. the revised guidelines continue to represent a deliberately 
conservative approach, with the intent of erring on the side 
of caution. 
Uniform guidelines 
The Federal Inter-Agency Committee on Recombinant DXA Re- 
search in 1976 proposed that a single set of national standards be 
applied to all recombinant DXA activities. 
HEW and representatives of private industry testified before the 
Health .Subcommittee that all laboratories receiving Federal grants 
now comply with the XTIT guidelines, and private laboratories volun- 
tarily impose the same guidelines on themselves. However, the extent 
to which the guidelines are enforced in the pri vate sector, cannot be 
determined without Federal law. 
Therefore, the administration proposed a bill, largely based on the 
committee’s recommendations, which provided IIEW with the re- 
sponsibility for regulation and specified that the XIH guidelines be 
promulgated as initial standards. The scope of the regulation was 
directed to the use and production of recombinant DXA molecules. 
The Department was to exercise its regulator}" authority in close con- 
sultation with other appropriate agencies. 
Scientists' concerns 
A 1977 Gordon Research Conference on Nucleic Acids expressed 
serious reservations about pending legislation. An open letter to Con- 
gress. June 18, 1977, signed by 137 members of the conference states: 
We are concerned that the benefits of recombinant DXA 
research will be denied to society by unnecessarily restric- 
tive legislation. 
Four years ago, the members of the 1973 Gordon Confer- 
ence on Nucleic Acids were the first to draw public attention 
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