to be rescued or be complemented. This should not be left up to 
the investigator to determine. 
Dr. Davis asked whether the current proposed amendment was too 
complex and whether it should be distributed in this form. 
Dr. Korwek replied that he had suggested that a document such as 
the one prepared by Dr. Tolin be promulgated and distributed, and 
that possibly Dr. Tolin' s document could be distributed with the 
caveat that it is advisory only. 
Dr. Davis said he was concerned about having Biosafety Levels 3 
and 4 at all for large animals. The issues were twofold: (1) 
the concern for altered animals, and (2) the concern for microbes 
on or in those animals. He said that with altered animals and 
plants there is no need to go to Biosafety Levels 3 and 4. Other 
regulations already exist to regulate potentially pathogenic 
microbes. Perhaps some guidelines need to be estab-lished for 
how you handle these microbes when they are on or in large 
animals and plants. 
Dr. McGarrity responded that since the proposal originated from 
the USDA, perhaps they had conceived of conditions where there 
would be experiments using Class III or Class IV agents with 
large laboratory animals, and this had been the assumption that 
the working group had been working under. 
Dr. Davis said he was worried that the public may get the 
impression that anything involving recombinant DNA, including 
transgenic animals, might be inherently dangerous. 
Dr. McGarrity responded that in Appendix G there already are 
Biosafety Levels 1 through 4. It is unreasonable to assume that 
every ongoing experiment is being done at the BL4 level. In 
fact, the overwhelming majority of experiments are done at the 
BLl or BL2 levels, and the same thing will be true of experiments 
with plants or animals. 
Dr. Hughes said the injection transgenic experiments were pulled 
out of the document at the very beginning and separated just to 
allay such fears. He stated part of the charge to the working 
group and the RAC is to provide guidance to the local IBCs to 
assure people that what is going on is not particularly 
dangerous . 
Dr. Walters said he had a conceptual question in that on page 49 
of tab 1290, paragraph 184, where Appendix Q begins it says that 
this appendix deals with animals or microorganisms associated 
with animals. He said he wasn't sure how one would know which 
microorganisms these were in that the bulk of the document deals 
with large animals rather than microorganisms associated with 
them. 
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Recombinant DNA Research, Volume 13 
