25 
bacterium of the molecular biologist and the geneticist for the last 25 years. 
E. coli can mate with a variety of organisms it comes in contact with, both 
to donate and receive new genetic material. Moreover, it readily transfers 
the small plasmids to other cells. These plasmids could then become widely 
(j semina ted among other bacteria that inhabit animals, humans, and the soil. 
So much for the risks. Let me now turn to the response to that National 
Academy of Sciences report which was published in 1973. 
How did the scientific community respond to that unorthodox call for a 
pause in what was clearly a particularly exciting line of research? To my 
knowledge, during the time the appeal was in force, there was no explicit 
violation. I have no evidence nor have I heard of any which suggests that 
scientists were stealthily carrying out proscribed experiments in the dead 
of night or on weekends. The Directors of the National Institutes of Health 
and the National Science Foundation made available funds to convene the in- 
ternational conference which was to consider appropriate ways to deal with 
the postulated hazards. The NIH also appointed a National Advisory Com- 
mittee to consider these issues. Official bodies from Great Britain, France, 
Germany, Holland, the Soviet Union, Australia, Japan, all met to consider 
their response to the mounting pressures to proceed with this work in their 
own countries. 
I believe the most important outcome of that report was the debate 
and response among the scientific community itself. Discussions of hazards 
and safety began to be considered, together with the scientific protocol 
for likely experiments. 
In February, just a year ago, the International Conference on Recom- 
binant DNA Molecules was held at Asilomar, Pacific Grove, to discuss 
appropriate ways to deal with the potential biohazards of this research. 
The conference participants, which included besides scientists, lawyers, 
and representatives from government and industry, recognized that they 
were not a legislative body, and therefore they were not empowered to 
license or to approve experimental protocol. The group had absolutely no 
policy-making function or directive. Our mandate was to provide evidence 
and advice — advice concerning the best available estimate of the risks 
associated with the recombinant DNA methodology, and advice as to what 
action could be taken to deal with such risks. 
Without any power the only thing we had available was the reason- 
ableness of our arguments, and moral suasion. Only those could influence 
our colleagues elsewhere in the various bodies that were entrusted with 
making policy. 
The key concern of the meeting was whether the work should continue, 
or could continue, with minimal risks to workers in the laboratory, to the 
public at large, and to the plant and animal systems sharing our planet. 
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