102 
we have agreed to do some things that don't seem to make a lot of sense 
scientifically, but here is what the rules are. We have gone along with 
it . 
I can't tell you how frustrated I felt this morning when I talked 
to John Tooze and he said to me, "We have already moved ahead in this 
direction; can you give us information on how to inoculate animals," which 
we know how to do. 
MR. HUTT : Has the problem been getting the exemption from NIH, or 
has the problem been — which I can understand — transferring from Litton to 
the Government and rehiring people, et cetera, which are not the fault of 
the Guidelines? 
DR. MARTIN: There have been many problems. There is a lawsuit right 
now which specifically says we can't go ahead. 
MR. HUTT: That is not the fault of the Guidelines either. Is there 
something that could be changed in the Guidelines to make that easier, or 
are these outside things that the Guidelines don't affect? 
DR. MARTIN: Correct me if I am wrong, but I think there is nothing 
in the original Guidelines that gives the Director of the NIH, I think, 
specific direction to grant exemptions specifically. I think the inser- 
tion of such a prerogative this time should help to overcome this diffi- 
culty. 
DR. FREDRICKSON: Mr. Helms. 
MR. HELMS: One other question bothers me here. Why did we consider 
this had to be at the highest level of containment, and why was it not 
considered necessary in Europe? Is this something we ought to be thinking 
about here? We are in biological containment now, and here was a tremen- 
dously important experiment, otherwise we wouldn't have spent two years of 
our time thinking about it. Could it have gone ahead? 
DR. FREDRICKSON: Dr. Tooze, would you answer Mr. Helms' question? 
DR. TOOZE: I think a very short answer which I would like to come 
back to later on is that it seems to us in Europe that the American Guide- 
lines for work involving viral nucleic acids are hopelessly, excessively 
stringent, and the European committees do not go along with this naive 
overstr ingency . 
DR. FREDRICKSON: I would like to adjourn on that note, and we will 
return exactly in 15 minutes, after coffee. 
(Brief recess.) 
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