198 
Now, I think that some suggestions that have been made in the direction 
of imitating consent procedures possibly provide some greater assurance of 
adequate training, some sort of certification, because I think that we must 
be assured that everyone who is dealing with these kinds of organisms is 
aware of the danger, and also has been really adequately trained in how to 
deal with it. I have seen too many examples of laboratories where there is 
a general knowledge of proper handling of dangerous materials, but where 
there was too much looseness and too much flow of people for them to be 
really adequately enforced. 
In the area of biological containment I think I have already commented 
on my uneasiness about 15. coli , and I am even more uneasy about how things 
are going to be — how switchover to another organism can be implemented. 
I think that along the lines of what Dr. Brown was saying in terms of 
he wanted to see sort of individual consideration of research projects, I 
would like to see, as soon as EK2 systems are available, that they become 
the standard laboratory organism, and any experiments that cannot be done 
with EK2 that need an organism that is of a different genetic composition, 
special petition or consideration of that research should be given, and as 
soon as EK3 organisms are available, essentially that means that an EK2 
organism becomes an EK3 organism, so some of the distinctions in the guide- 
lines about reducing downshifting from EK3 to EK2 are meaningless in ongoing 
research. 
The distinction about translation versus non-translation of genes in- 
serted into new organisms, I think, can form the basis for further categori- 
zation of experiments on the basis of danger, because unexpressed genes are 
obviously not going to be anywhere near as dangerous as expressed ones. 
However, I think that this kind of categorization can't take place until 
after the reasons for nonexpression are better understood, in other words, 
if circumstances arise, either genetic or environmental, that could cause 
expression of genes after they escape, I think that has to be taken into 
consideration. 
I think my main concern is the question of flexibility, because I think 
that ideally if we could be assured that we could recommend the most strin- 
gent guidelines that we feel comfortable with, and that they could be recom- 
mended as actual estimations of hazard are arrived at, I think that we would 
all be a lot more comfortable with the situation. It is the idea that these 
guidelines could become rigid and inflexible. It makes people nervous about 
coming down too hard. That is why I think that probably the most important 
task that you have ahead of you is devising methods by which these guide- 
lines can be constantly revised, as information comes in. 
Furthermore, I think that they should not be solidified, or ossified, 
until after experiments, perhaps done by the NIH, give some real estimation 
of hazard. 
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