99 
DR. FREDRICKSON: You will have the opportunity to return to this 
same subject during the public witness section. 
Any other comments? 
Dr. Tooze, did you want to come at this time, or on the next, experi- 
mental guidelines? Or do you realize it is so close to coffee? 
DR. TOOZE: I would like to say something about the risk-testing experi- 
ments. Is that appropriate now? 
DR. FREDRICKSON: Please take the podium, if you will. This is Dr. John 
Tooze, who brings to us the summary of the activities and the attitudes of 
both the European Molecular Biology Organization and the European Science 
Foundation, which literally between them control the nature of guidelines 
and standards-set ting in all western Europe. 
Dr. Tooze. 
DR. TOOZE: Someone mentioned the difficulty of the American Guide- 
lines prohibiting or inhibiting risk-testing experiments. I think that 
is a very serious proposition. I understand that one particular experi- 
ment, a polyoma insertion experiment, has been hung up for whatever proce- 
dural or mechanical reasons here. 
I would just report briefly that the same experiment is being done 
in Europe. The British GMAG said it did not require P4 containment because 
of the threat to anybody, but only because of the integrity of the experi- 
ment. You don't want adventitious infection of the experimental animals. 
The situation is that the polyoma plasmid, polyoma lambda hybrids, have 
been made and been propagated, and they are being characterized chemically 
in Zurich and in Edinburgh, and they will be used to transfect mouse cells 
in London in January, and then we shall proceed from there to do the experi- 
ment in mice. 
That is all I would like to say at this juncture, except perhaps con- 
cerning subtilis . Tomorrow in Sweden the Swedish National Committee 
will have a proposal to do a cloning experiment with B. subtilis and a 
Staphylococcus aureus plasmid vector. It, I am sure, will defer any final 
decision. But the French Committee met two days ago and they have set up a 
subcommittee to try and reach some specific criteria for a biologically 
contained B^ subtilis-Staphylococcus aureus plasmid vector system. 
DR. FREDRICKSON: Hold it just a moment, John. Do the members of the 
Committee have any questions for Dr. Tooze on these points? 
DR. AHMED: What was the nature of these experiments? Does it have 
anything to do with risk-assessment, or just to see — 
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