Dr. Donald S. Fredrickson, Director 
National Institutes of Health 
9000 Rockville Pike 
Bethesda, Maryland 20014 
Dear Dr. Fredrickson: 
Enclosed is a copy of the report of the Workshop on Risk 
Assessment of Agricultural Pathogens held in Washington on March 20-21, 
1978. This meeting, which was cosponsored by the NIH, NSF and USDA, 
was attended by 12 invited participants and about 20 others, who served 
as liaison representatives from various government agencies or as 
observers. The invited participants had collective expertise in all 
of the major disciplines in plant pathology, and one has worked with 
baculovi ruses. Only 5 have a direct involvement in recombinant DNA 
research. A list of participants and government liaison representatives 
is appended to this letter. 
The primary purpose of the meeting was to assess the risks 
accompanying the use of recombinant DNA technology with agricultural 
pathogens. Our discussions covered plant pathogens and baculovi ruses. 
We considered that risk assessment here entails a consideration of 
different concerns than those applied to risk assessment of research 
with man and animals and we were of the collective opinion that with 
a few specifically enumerated precautions, the risk to man and to 
animals is minimal. Consequently, we have recommended a lowering of 
containment levels in a number of instances. 
Our discussions dealing with certain types of experiments 
were clouded by our uncertainty as to what will be the accepted definition 
of genetic exchangers which will eventually result in elimination of 
some organisms from the guidelines. We have anticipated two alternative 
situations and have presented our recommendations for both. 
We are forwarding a copy of this report to Dr. Gartland's 
office for consideration at the April 27-28 meeting of your Recombinant 
Advisory Committee. 
[See Appendix G to "National 
Institutes of Health Environ- 
mental Impact Assessment," 
Federal Register , p. 33174, 
July 28, 1978.] 
Yours sincerely, 
Peter r . Day 
Department of Genetics 
Connecticut Agricultural 
Experiment Station 
Attachment 
[Appendix A — 273] 
Milton Zaitlin 
Department of Plant Pathology 
Cornell University 
