- 4 - 
absolutely no way of predicting what segment of the environment 
polyoma virus that has been mixed into a wild type E. coli will 
infect. However, this possibility clearly poses a threat to all 
warm blooded animals and indeed to the entire environment. 
7. It has been asserted that the "weakened" bacteria used 
as gene implantation recipients in the experiments have an outside 
survival probability of one in one hundred million. However, a one 
quart (reasonable daily working quantity) of laboratory culture of 
recombinant DNA, the product of the gene splicing experiments, 
easily contains 10-100 million bacteria. Even a miniscule quantity 
of harmful organisms in the environment, due to their ability to 
reproduce rapidly, represents a real danger. The possibilities 
of grave and unknown risks of the spread of cancer, of slow 
viruses, or of novel pathogens can not be discounted. Such agents 
could well become widely disseminated before their noxious effects 
became evident. 
8. The experiments proceed on the assumption, stated as a 
fact, that polyoma virus only infects rodents and is not a human 
cancer virus . However, research sufficient to establish the truth 
of that statement has not been conducted. Polyoma virus was first 
discovered in 1960, and to date no scientific study has been published 
as to the incidence of cancer among the laboratory workers who have 
worked with polyoma over those 17 years . And 17 years since exposure 
t • a carcinogen is not an overly long induction period for cancer. 
To say that polyoma is not a human cancer violates fundamental. 
[Appendix C — 62] 
