129 
It has also been pointed out by scientists in the field that there are 
other ways, perhaps slower, of gaining the understanding of genetic mecha- 
nisms which is expected from recombinant techniques. 
Finally, there is the question of how members of the committee present 
today will act. Do they accept the strong presumption underlying most of 
the presentations this morning that the risks are acceptable and the 
research will go on, or will they question that presumption and do what 
in my view they should do, namely to ask whether it is justified at the 
present time to press forward and to foster proliferation of laboratories 
and experiments of unknown risks before a more viable decision-making 
process has been set up, and before the scientific community has had a 
chance to judge and question the soundness of the scientific foundations 
of the guidelines. 
Thank you. 
DR. FREDRICKSON: Thank you. Dr. Wright. Would you like to remain 
there at the podium for a moment? Perhaps there are some members of the 
committee who would like to ask a question. 
I see two — You aren't really the public, because you were asked to 
be here, Dr. Berg. 
DR. BERG: I would like to point out one thing that I thought was 
obvious in Dr. Singer's presentation. A very large number of experiments 
which require P3 and EK2 are in effect not doable at the present time. 
Now, you made some comments about how an EK2 vector will in fact 
become available to be certified. Dr. Curtiss has told us about his 
progress. The guidelines say that no experiments can be done that re- 
quire an EK2 vector unless, until the vector has been certified by the 
committee. So at the present time it is not dependent on Dr. Curtiss' 
word — that, in fact, that organism would be distributed widely to the 
scientific community and in fact will be verified as to whether it 
satisfies the criteria; and only after the committee, the NIH committee 
certifies it as such, which is in fact the equivalent of having pub- 
lished it, having it verified independently by many laboratories, will 
in fact experiments that require EK2 be possible. 
So I think that I would like to correct what I think is a miscon- 
ception, that Roy Curtiss' word up here, saying I may have made an EK2 
vector, frees everybody to go ahead and do the experiments without any 
independent verification. 
DR. WRIGHT: Could I respond to that? 
DR. FREDRICKSON: Yes, of course. 
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