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positive pressure suits. I wouldn't like to comment on this, but at some 
stage I would like your committee, sir, to perhaps come a little more out 
into the open on that subject. Those are small points, and I think that is 
what I have to say. 
DR. FREDRICKSON: Thank you, Sir John. 
Professor Rosenblith, Provost of MIT, long a member of this Advisory 
Committee, and also one of those in attendance in 1976. 
Walter . 
PROFESSOR ROSENBLITH: Well, I guess professors just don't know how to 
say they've already said it. Nevertheless, I am impressed by the fact that 
both Peter Hutt and Bob Sinsheimer have raised some of the issues that con- 
cern me too, although I wouldn't necessarily agree with them on the details, 
having neither the competence of the one nor the other. 
I would like to say that instead of talking about the Guidelines as we 
have them before us, I would first like to say something about other aspects 
of the process. I think that this has been a remarkable process. It has 
been a process with warts, like all processes, especially if they are model 
or pilot processes. I think they are processes that if you ran them the 
second time that way, you would say you have no right to, but there is a 
first time. 
I think that the process has been very significant in helping institu- 
tions around this country, academic institutions, to come to grips with a 
set of complex issues that they have not previously considered. I think 
that our own institution, where we very quickly came to a posture — which I, 
by the way, think most academic institutions today endorse, namely of saying 
that we will obey the Guidelines no matter who is the sponsor — I think for 
our institution it has given us a different way of viewing the whole area of 
biosafety. It has made for a consciousness raising that hasn't yet gone to 
the fact of standardizing training courses, as Sir John was talking about, 
but that has led to a considerable increase of awareness of what we had to 
do in these areas. 
I think in an institution in which there are lasers and there is radio- 
activity and there are biohazards, it is not that easy to do that, and while 
Professor King and I may have sounded a little bit 90 degrees out of phase, 
I think that basically we need to learn how to come to grips with these 
matters. Having said that, let me say that my reaction to the revisions 
which we have before us is mixed. It is mixed because I perceive two out- 
standing difficulties — and I don't call them faults, but difficulties. I 
think the context, the conceptual context is not clearly stated. Without a 
clear statement of the conceptual context, and I am well aware of the dif- 
ferent opinions we know and have about it, it is very hard to set clear 
objectives and then to write clear guidelines or clear regulations. 
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