165 
the public and society representation on the Committee. I think it is just 
unreasonable to expect those kinds of considerations to be dealt with by a 
purely scientific committee, or a committee with two out of fifteen public 
represent at ives . 
The exemption to the large-volume prohibition, I agree that in the long 
run that will probably have to come about, but it seems that before specific 
exemptions are given, there should be developed objective criteria for deter- 
mining the effectiveness of containment techniques for those kinds of exper- 
iments. That is completely left out of the Guidelines. We don't know on 
what basis the Committee might or might not make that kind of determination. 
Really, the same thing is true for the exceptions to experiments for deliber- 
ate release. We just have no idea why or why not those might be made, and I 
think criteria for that should be earmarked before the Committee can go 
ahead and make those decisions. 
I suppose my comments on the makeup of the Committee should wait until 
tomorrow. 
The other just small, specific thing is the lowering of the character- 
ized clones by the biohazards committee. I don't know about the safety or 
hazard necessarily involved in that, but I do have a feeling that those bio- 
hazards committees are not trustable, that we cannot trust them to go in and 
to look at the necessary information that has to be looked at. I think the 
information that might be coming out about the Harvard Biohazard Committee 
that certainly came out about the UCSF Biohazard Committee shows us that now 
we have no effective monitoring of that committee, and until we can have 
some assurance of the kind of work they do, they should be, unfortunately, 
entrusted with as little particular responsibility, even though in the long 
run I think they are an integral part of the Guidelines, and we should figure 
out ways, and I will talk about this specifically tomorrow, that their func- 
tion can be strengthened and their ability to carry on that function strength- 
ened in such a way that they do perform an*integral role in these Guidelines. 
DR. FREDRICKSON: Any comments or questions? 
Mr. Helms. 
MR. HELMS: Do you have something specific for the record? I have 
heard a good deal about the Boyer laboratory out in California, and the 
analysis I got differs from the analysis that you have obviously gotten. 
And as far as what went on at Harvard, I know nothing about that and I would 
like to know a little bit more about it, because the biohazards committees 
that I am familiar with in New Jersey take their responsibilities extremely 
seriously, almost painfully seriously. If they could get the hours back 
that they have to spend on these problems and spend it in their labs they 
would be very grateful. So I would like some specific documentation that 
we could get our hands on, if you please. 
DR. FREDRICKSON: I will provide you with some information a little bit 
later, Mr. Helms, in reference to the Harvard situation, but Mr. Dach , I 
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