89 
possible, and of course one wants to make stringent criteria here, and of 
course I think they need to be separated in one sense simply because there 
happens to be such a lot of work that has been done on E_^ col i , some of 
which is, for example, summarized in the Falmouth documents. It is obvious 
that the Guidelines ought to stress the point that new host-vector systems 
should be treated a little gingerly, maybe, but this should not be interpre- 
ted as meaning that people should keep their hands off. It seems to me 
that it is terribly important that other systems should be developed as 
quickly as possible, and the caution described in the Guidelines should not 
be interpreted as suggesting that the work really ought not to be done on 
those other systems. I think it should rather be the other way around. 
DR. FREDRICKSON: That is my understanding as I read the comments and 
the revisions, and I am glad that we can seek some correction if that is 
not true, that what the Committee here, the RAC, sought to do was to not 
exempt nonpathogens of other host-vector systems, but to force that to come 
into the Committee for a variety of reasons. Again, the investigator must 
provide the maximum information, and it continues to maintain the maximum 
information throughout the system so that we know what people would be doing, 
which we would not do under exemptions. But as I understand it, that is 
primarily the purpose, and that is why you see this very conservative (in 
many people's view) approach still maintained in these revisions. Is that 
it? 
DR. GOTTESMAN: That was certainly my feeling, that we should make the 
option for other HV1 systems much more visible than it was in the original 
Guidelines, but do it under conditions where we knew what was going on, and 
watched it at every step. 
DR. FREDRICKSON: Just as a matter of record, another commentator asks 
about HV1. Would these systems always have to contain containment mutations, 
or could some wild-type nonpathogens be included? 
DR. GOTTESMAN: I think it can be considered as parallel to E. coli 
K-12 — that is, at the one level we don't necessarily require containment if 
it is an organism which we have reason to believe doesn't have a high poten- 
tial for survival and transmission outside the laboratory. 
DR. FREDRICKSON: I see. 
Mr. Hutt. 
MR. HUTT: At the February 1976 Advisory Committee, there was strong 
sentiment that NIH should take the lead both internally and in funding proj- 
ects of pushing towards development of other HV systems to overcome what 
you perceive as a discrimination or a potential discrimination here. Has 
that in fact been done or not? 
DR. FREDRICKSON: NIH indicated that it would then, and it continues to 
encourage applications for this. It did not, however, mount a large con- 
tract program to go into B. subtilis, for example, or other spore defective 
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