of how disposal would occur, the concentration of live organisms 
in the material being disposed, and the method of disposal. 
Dr. Riley said the RAC was acting as an IBC and that it seemed 
wrong for the RAC to be dealing with such detailed questions. 
Dr. McKinney said that the revision of Section III-B-5 which was 
voted on today is merely a recommendation to the Director of NIH 
and that there was no guarantee that he would accept it. 
Therefore, the RAC must act because the current accepted version 
of the NIH Guidelines requires RAC approval for such experiments. 
Dr. Johnson said he sensed some inconsistency in such an approach 
because the NIH in the past has tried to avoid getting involved 
in the review process for industry. Liability eventually resides 
with the manufacturer. Dr. McKinney said the RAC had made a 
decision years ago to look at recombinant organisms being 
considered for large-scale production only from a scientific 
perspective without consideration of the engineering issues. In 
being asked to review and approve a process at less than BL1-LS 
containment, the RAC was perhaps in this instance being asked to 
act as an IBC insofar as this is the kind of information an IBC 
should consider. 
Dr. Johnson said if the Gottesman proposal were accepted that 
would give the IBC the clear authority which it would be happy to 
exercise in this case. 
Mr. Mannix said, "in the spirit of the recommendation that was 
just made on the previous agenda item, I move that we look at 
this as a specific case and recommend exactly what Lilly 
proposed." Dr. Pagano seconded the motion. 
Dr. Atlas asked if this meant it would be sent to the IBC and 
they would be allowed to make the decision. Mr. Mannix said it 
was essentially to remove the requirement for BL1-LS and leave it 
to the discretion of the IBC. 
The motion, having been duly made and seconded, was put to a vote 
by Dr. McGarrity and was passed by a vote of 12 in favor, none 
opposed, and three abstentions. Dr. Johnson asked that his 
abstention be noted on the record. 
VIII. PROPOSED CLARIFYING STATEMENTS REGARDING TRANSPOSONS (tab 1316). 
Dr. Vidaver said the background for this request for 
consideration was an incident in which there was a question of 
introduction into the environment of a recombinant DNA-containing 
microorganism. The experiment involved a plasmid transfer in a 
mating experiment which resulted in a mutant by use of a suicide 
vector containing a transposon, leaving open the question of 
whether or not this was recombinant DNA. The issue is for the 
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Recombinant DNA Research, Volume 13 
