- 2 - 
If NIH retains its surveillance of these, it can remove them from the HV-0 
category for cause , on a case-by-case basis, without the nasty problem of 
defining some experiments as recombinant DNA and others not simply on the basis 
of bacterial species. 
3. Flexibility is retained in this area, since the criterion of 
"exchanger" may in fact change as more is learned about natural mechanisms 
of genetic exchange in nature. I can imagine in the future one might 
want to place some experiments now in the HV-1, P-1 class into the HV-O, 
P-0 class on the basis of a finding of natural exchange. In the absence of 
any such explicit category, one would have to say that such experiments 
suddenly stopped being recombinant DNA, which to me seems illogical and 
which might be hard to defend publicly. 
4. NIH can avoid the potentially burdensome problem of having to 
define, in an absolute way, difference between "pathogens" and "non- 
pathogens". This is, as we all realize, a relative matter. By retaining 
explicit surveillance, NIH can grade the level of containment for exchangers 
according to some realistic determination of the degree of pathogenicity, 
without having to rule in or out absolutely a marginal case. Under the 
existing draft revised Guidelines there is no good way to deal with a weakly 
pathogenic species which is an exchanger or a non-pathogenic strain of a 
bona fide pathogen. Retention of these experiments under the guidelines should 
allow satisfactory arbitration of these kinds of problems. 
In closing, I would like to urge that whatever is decided, the large 
class of experiments unfortunately and unintentionally forbidden by current 
guidelines (e.g. Salmonella and Klebsiella self-cloning) be explicitly permitted 
(if only by mention as examples) in the language of the new revised quidelines. 
Only in this way can I see justice for those of us who, by indirection and political 
expediency, have been denied the fruits of recombinant DNA technology for the 
past several years. 
Thank you again for your consideration. It was kind of you to see 
me and to listen to our problems. 
David Botstein 
Associate Professor of Genetics 
XC: Dr. S. Gottesman 
Dr. W. Rowe 
Dr. W. Gartland 
[Appendix A — 271] 
