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humans or other organisms. There might be DNA that would produce — whose 
gene products would be hormones that could act on humans or other organ- 
isms, and also that the DNA derived in a shotgun experiment could produce 
enzvnes that would create various kinds of biological havoc. I think the 
remarks of Dr. Curtiss about the fact that we should consider much more 
than just humans as targets, but the entire biosphere, is probably 
reasonable. 
I think the main point is that a shotgun experiment does just that, it 
is a shot in the dark. You don't know what you are picking up, and until 
you have grown out the cloned DNA, you don't purify it initially, you have 
to grow up a fair amount of DNA before you know what you have. This would 
be on the order of 10® to 10^ such genetic units. 
We therefore feel that these kinds of experiments should be treated 
with the utmost caution and in the main should be banned. 
DR. FREDRICKSON: You are referring then to the document entitled 
"Recombinant DNA Molecule Advisory Committee Proposal," in which you 
discuss differences between the Asilomar statement and Woods Hole 
guidelines . 
DR. SILVERSTONE: Those were proposed based on the Woods Hole guide- 
lines for the La Jolla meeting. [See Appendix A to these Proceedings ] 
DR. FREDRICKSON: Yes. 
DR. SILVERSTONE : Now, in the La Jolla meeting, as people can see 
from the document, different proposals were made and voted on. Our posi- 
tion continues to be that certain experiments should be banned, that those 
guidelines, the La Jolla guidelines, instead set standards for containment, 
but gave the go-ahead to do. [See Appendix A to these Proceedings ] 
DR. FREDRICKSON: Very good, I just wanted to clarify your point. 
Dr. Singer, are you ready then to discuss your perception of how the 
La Jolla guidelines, that is, the last edition, compare with the requests 
of the Recombinant DNA Group from Boston? 
DR. SINGER: I might just say that this document which Dr. Silverstone 
referred to was available during the La Jolla meeting, and I think perhaps 
the first thing we could do would be to compare the list in the document, 
which is on page 3 of the document, which is entitled — I guess this parti- 
cular one is not titled, but it has a covering letter signed by Duncan, 
Goldstein, Orrego and Primakoff. It is dated November 24. 
DR. FREDRICKSON: I want everyone on the committee to realize where 
we are: page 3 of that document, yes. 
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