42 
MR. HUTT : I would like him to clarify what he meant by "the pro- 
ceedings of the Advisory Committee were inadequate," i f he would. I wasn't 
quite sure what the basis of that statement was. 
DR. KING: Oh, that the data base — it seems to me from my famil- 
iarity with other such Federal agencies that you first collect the data 
on which your judgment is made. It may be grossly inadequate. At that 
point you can say, "Look, clearly not enough is known about the inci- 
dence of laboratory-acquired infections; however, we have to proceed with 
guidelines anyway. We have ignorance in this area and we will move to 
correct it." But this is not done in these Guidelines. They don't have 
these basic facts. 
MR. HUTT: Could there be a response from the Committee on that as 
to whether they have compiled the basis for — ? 
DR. KING: Well, it has to be public, because unless I can read it 
I don't know if they know of the article by Myerowitz, Medeiros, and O'Brian 
on the incidence of infection in Boston City Hospital, and if it is not 
written down, how is one to know whether it is adequate or not? My grant 
will not be renewed on the basis of unpublished information. 
DR. FREDRICKSON: We have time for one more question for Dr. King. 
DR. KING: Just one more thing. This point of collecting data on 
how people get sick in laboratories: this is not because they are get- 
ting sick from recombinant DNA organisms; this is because, in the absence 
of baseline data, it is impossible to detect any differences, and so the 
primary — I mean, how are you going to know your Guidelines are any good 
unless you have baseline data? 
DR. FREDRICKSON: Mr. Helms. 
MR. HELMS: I think Mr. Hutt's point is fairly fundamental here. Can 
someone from the Committee indicate where the documents were that they 
relied on, and how they intend to put this together? Obviously, if that 
is the way this is done, it ought to be done in this case. 
DR. FREDRICKSON: Dr. Helinski. 
DR. HELINSKI: Let me comment on this. Number one, there were a 
number of references included with the first issuance of the Guidelines, 
that supported, we felt, quite amply the statements that we made in these 
Guidelines or the recommendations in the Guidelines. 
Secondly, I am a little bit disturbed about this continued reference 
to the Falmouth meeting and how we used this as the sole basis for our 
proposed revisions. If you look in this Green Book, there are 26 refer- 
ences. Eight of them — I am sorry, four of them are Falmouth reports. Two 
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