Donald S. Fredrickson, M.D 
11/9/77 
Page 4 
I believe that, for consistency, the Guidelines should give investigators 
the option to trade a level of physical containment for a level of biological 
containment in these categories, as they have done in others. If the 
principle of making such a trade is valid, it should be applied across the 
board . 
(4) The institutional committee to be established in connection 
with recombinant DNA should be called an institutional biosafety committee, 
rather than a "biohazards 11 committee. It seems to me that the purpose 
of the institutional committee is to ensure the biosafety of recombinant 
DNA experimentation, whether or not biohazards are actually involved. 
Since the introductory section clearly . points out that "to date, no 
known hazardous organism has been produced in this work," the term 
"biosafety committee" would seem to be more appropriate and would more 
accurately describe the responsibility of the committee. Continued use 
of the term "biohazards committee" helps to foster fears which, in my 
opinion, do not appear to be warranted. 
I hope that these comments and suggestions will be useful to you 
and to the Advisory Committee in preparing the final version of the 
revised Recombinant DNA Guidelines. 
Sincerely yours 
ISk 
Stanley N. Cohen, M.D. 
Professor of Medicine and 
Professor of Genetics 
SNC/jmd 
[Appendix A — 315] 
