102 
is that they have not been studied, and to assume because they have not 
been studied that they are safe, to me seems to be sort of an absurdity. 
I mean, E_^ coli has been studied for years and years at millions and 
maybe billions of dollars of research money throughout the world, and all 
of the problems we are very familiar with. 
MR. HUTT: Well, what about going to a requirement of no EK1, just 
EK2? 
DR. CURTISS: Well, that would, I think, in terms of the probabilities 
I gave this morning. ... If you use an EK1 system, it is very likely 
that that organism if released in abundance would survive and perpetuate 
the genetic information. So I would go along with that, I guess. I think 
that would be a reasonable ultimate goal. 
MR. HUTT: But what would that result in, and perhaps I should ask 
Dr. Berg and Dr. Hogness, what would it result in in terms of lost time 
and effort and money, and scientific information if that requirement were 
imposed? 
DR. FREDRICKSON: Dr. Hogness? 
DR. HOGNESS: First, there are no EK2's at the moment. 
MR. HUTT: I understand that. 
DR. HOGNESS: So we already have some time loss. 
MR. HUTT: Correct. 
DR. HOGNESS: Second, I think the question really asks are there 
experiments you can only do with EKl that you can't do with EK2 in the 
near future, and the answer is yes. 
DR. FREDRICKSON: Dr. Petersdorf? 
DR. PETERSDORF: I want to make a philosophical comment. I take 
great issue with what you said there, Mr. Hutt, simply because if your 
arguments carry through to their logical conclusion, there would be in 
fact no biomedical research, because there is no completely safe research 
experiment. The reason most of us are here and are enjoying the certain 
benefits of health that we are enjoying is because people have perhaps 
in their ignorance done dangerous experiments. There isn't anything that 
you do in biomedical research that doesn't carry some risk. 
So I feel that the risks here have to be evaluated or the cost-benefit 
ratio has to be balanced. I think you have been unduly conditioned by your 
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