104 
It is hard to tell precisely how effective the encouragement of the 
committee in terms of these proposed guidelines is going to be in terms 
of any real change in the near future in terms of the kinds of experiments 
that are going on. 
DR. FREDRICKSON: Dr. Stetten, do you want to respond to Ms. Haygood's 
question? 
DR. STETTEN: I would like to make one comment in relation to this 
whole discussion, and that is the one risk which I have not heard described 
or discussed is the risk of inaction, which I think is a very real risk. 
The risks that we are talking about are largely, as has been stressed 
by others, imaginary scenarios, which may or may not bear relation to 
reality. The risks of inaction, with a little imagination, can be choreo- 
graphed equally easily. I think these are risks, not so much costs, but 
risks which must be taken into the equation before we decide whether to go 
or not to go. 
Some years ago a popular song writer worried about the pollution 
ambient in this country in a song, the refrain line of which was "Don't 
drink the water, don't breathe the air." This was good, sound advice, in 
that if one followed it, one would certainly evade the risks of pollution. 
Unfortunately, one would also die. 
DR. FREDRICKSON: Let me answer your question, then, Ms. Haygood. 
The NIH does have certain powers or remedies for the capacity to en- 
courage the movement of research along certain lines, and that if it seemed 
wisest and best from all considerations, to move gradually toward the de- 
velopment, or rapidly or as fast as possible toward the development of 
safer organisms and eventually to use only those, this is possible within 
those powers that we already have. And I guess it is part of the education 
that we are going through today, to determine how necessary this does seem, 
and how important. 
I see a hand from the public, and before I begin the statements from 
the public, I will take one unprogrammed statement from the public. Would 
you identify yourself, please? 
DR. GOLDSTEIN: I am Richard Goldstein of the Boston Group. 
DR. FREDRICKSON: You are actually to be granted some time a little 
bit later. Dr. Goldstein. 
DR. GOLDSTEIN: Yes, but I thought it was an important point to make. 
I don't think there is any question here about the freedom of inquiry. 
It is a matter of freedom of manufacture, of a novel microorganism, and I 
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