75 
After we heard Dr. Barkley's report on the number already in existence 
and as interest in biological containment rose over the months, the com- 
mittee, I think, expressed disinterest in the specific support of additional 
high-containment facilities as not a matter of primary requirement at this 
time, but there were enough to do what anybody at this time seemed to feel 
had to be done. 
DR. HUDSON: Would this permit the movement of competent scientists 
from one area to another where these facilities do exist for this kind of 
effort? 
DR. STETTEN: I think maybe Dr. Barkley could speak to that. 
DR. BARKLEY: At the present time there does not appear to be an 
interest among scientists who would carry out P4 studies to relocate. 
There has been expressed an interest to do some risk assessment studies 
which could be done in a short period of time in containment facilities 
that might be available. 
At the National Cancer Institute consideration is being given at this 
time to providing some space to the Frederick Cancer Research Center for 
such interim uses of facilities for hazard assessment studies. 
DR. FREDRICKSON: Judge Bazelon? 
JUDGE BAZELON: I would like to ask a question here. At the high 
school laboratory level, what are the chances of a major disaster? Is there 
anything that can happen at the level that they can operate at? 
DR. FREDRICKSON: Dr. Berg, or Dr. Singer, or Dr. Hogness? Dr. Berg, 
do you want to try that? 
DR. BERG: I think, again, it depends on the kind of experiment that 
is being done. 
JUDGE BAZELON: Well, I am talking about the high school lab. 
DR. BERG: Yes, I mean that. For one thing I think one should take 
into consideration that the exposure or publicity of this issue has already 
alerted high school teachers and students to potential hazards that might 
grow out of such experiments, so I don't think that it would be done in an 
atmosphere of complete ignorance. 
But assuming they were, what kinds of experiments are they likely to 
do? They might take a frog's DNA and they might in fact take a bacterial 
culture of E_j_ coli and a plasmid, and mix them, cut them, and they try 
to see if they could introduce it into that bacterial cell. It would be 
very difficult in a high school classroom, in fact, to assess or determine 
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