are essential to determine if there was a violation of the 
Guidelines. 
You also state that review of the files "of NIH grant 
2-R37-A1-097C6-16 . . . verified that neither the grant 
application nor progress reports mention field testing in 
Argentina." We assume that this is intended to suggest that if 
such field testing was not contemplated, field testing was not 
part of the "project." However, previous years' grant 
applications and progress reports by Wistar for the development 
of this vaccine may disclose that field testing was contemplated, 
yet ycur letter fails to deal with them. 
Furthermore, a broader inquiry would have disclosed that 
such field testing was contemplated. The April 1986 issue of 
Research Resources Reporter , an NIH publication, contained a 
lengthy article on Wistar' s rabies vaccine research which 
described the field test later carried cut in Azul, Argentina. 
That report, then, contradicts the notion that field testing was 
not contemplated as a part of the project. 
Finally, Wistar 's admitted role in providing the vaccine to 
FAHG — the vaccine used in the Argentina experiment — developed 
through NIH funding (of over $3 million) , compels the conclusion 
that, on the facts, the Argentina tests were conducted with NIH 
funding. Nothing in the language or underlying policies of the 
Guidelines suggests that the NIH funding of a project abroad 
within the meaning of Section 1-C excludes in-kind NIH 
contributions or grants such as, for example, equipment or 
supplies, and here, the vaccine itself. 
In the light of the foregoing points, we request that NIH 
furthur investigate and review the facts and reconsider its 
factual analyses upon which it based its decision that the 
Argentina experiment was not supported in whole or part by NIH 
funding and that those field tests did not violate the NIH 
Guidelines and, after such reconsideration, reverse that 
decision . 
Aside from the factual basis for our conclusion above, based 
on vour interpretation of Section 1-C. that interpretation is 
legally flawed. Its artificallv narrowed concept of what 
constitutes NIH funding of a project fails to comport with the 
definition of federal agency action as used in the National 
Environmental Policy Act, applicable regulations, and the 
relevant case law. An agency action includes those activities 
and their effects which are "reasonably forseeable." 40 C.F.R. § 
1508.08. The resulting responsibilities of the agency for a 
project "cannot be escaped by disingenuously describing it as 
[ 236 ] 
Recombinant DNA Research, Volume 1 1 
