63 
In the present climate of opinion I think that this factor of a gain in 
knowledge has been under evaluated, and that our fear of the unknown has been 
overly emphasized, with the result that there has been, in my opinion, an 
overshoot in establishment of too restrictive conditions for containment in 
certain areas of these guidelines to which I have referred. 
For example, it was my opinion when I was a member of the Asilomar 
working group that sufficiently strict conditions of containment for the 
mammalian shotgun experiments are P3 plus EK1, or with the advent of EK2 
vectors, P2 plus EK2. I remain convinced that this is the case. 
In this regard, you should note that P3 conditions are not trivial. 
Thev are, for example, those recommended by NIH for the handling of the most 
virulent and pathogenic bacteria known to man, bacteria such as Pasteurella 
pestis . Even P2 conditions are considered adequate for bacteria with very 
significant pathogenicity, such as those responsible for diphtheria and 
anthrax. 
My comments on this subject would be incomplete if I did not note that 
though I disagree with much in the guidelines, I am glad that our committee 
has finally come forth with a document, simply because we now have, and you 
all have, something definite to refer to, something we can criticize, and 
something, I hope, we can change. 
I should like to conclude with a final fact that I shall leave to your 
own interpretation. In the past two and a half years, we have, in my labor- 
atory, cloned and handled tens of thousands of different recombinant mole- 
cules containing DNA from fruit flies under the prescribed conditions, P2 
plus EK1. In that time, our monitoring of the personnel involved in these 
experiments indicates that none have suffered any ill effects above the 
typical colds and one sprained back. 
By quoting the statistics I do not mean to indicate that I believe no 
dangers exist. Rather, I give it in closing to emphasize that we have as 
yet no evidence that the hazards that we can imagine exist. 
DR. FREDRICKSON: Thank you very much. Dr. Hogness. 
We have also asked Dr. Roy Curtiss, who is a Professor in the Depart- 
ment of Microbiology at the School of Medicine, University of Alabama, to 
do the same as Dr. Hogness has just done. 
Dr. Curtiss? I might add that Dr. Curtiss is one of those who has been 
recently responsible for some of the laboratory breakthroughs in developing 
safer host-vector pairs. 
DR. CURTISS: Thank you. 
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