r 
Department of 
Microbiology 
O n 
University 
Corvallis, Oregon 97331 
USA 
( 503 ) 754-1441 
12 January, 1978 
Dr. Donald S. Fredrickson 
Director 
National Institutes of Health 
9000 Rockville Pike 
Bethesda, Maryland 20014 
Dear Dr. Fredrickson: 
I want to express my gratitude for having the opportunity to participate 
in the meeting of the Advisory Committee to the Director last month. I 
was pleased to witness the degree to which the several sides of questions 
concerning the proposed revisions to the Guidelines were so thoroughly 
presented and discussed. The expeditious yet fair treatment of all testimony 
was evidence for the success of the meeting. 
It is my belief that the proposed revisions, as published in the 
Federal Register , 27 September, 1977, would facilitate in vitro DNA recom- 
bination experimentation without increasing the degree of risk from that 
inherent in the procedures prescribed in the present Guidelines. I do not 
favor their wholesale adoption, however. It seemed evident at the time 
of the meeting that some changes would be made; rewriting the definition 
paragraph of the Introduction to include chemically synthesized DNA molecules 
is an example. 
The testimony of several witnesses and statements made by some committee 
members suggested that a reconsideration of the very high containment levels 
required for some experiments involving the cloning of DNA from viruses of 
warm-blooded vertebrates was in order. If it is the consensus of the appro- 
priate members of the NIH Recombinant DNA Molecule Program Advisory Committee 
that proposed levels of containment for these experiments owe their existence 
more to political considerations than to scientific ones, as was implied 
by some testimony, I hope that the feasibility of making the containment 
requirements less stringent will be re-examined. 
Similarly, it was suggested that increasing the containment required 
for cloning genes from Agrobacterium tumefaciens is unjustified, considering 
the scientific information available. If the Recombinant DNA Molecule 
Program Advisory Committee determines that those suggestions are valid, 
I hope that will be reflected in the Revised Guidelines by permitting these 
experiments to continue at the P2 level. 
[Appendix A — 210] 
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