19 . 
3. - Establishment of procedures that will assure continued 
epidemiological monitoring of people (and their families) in places 
where artificial DNA recombination experiments are performed. The 
National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NlOSH), which 
under the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSIIA) of 1970 was 
charged to determine the potential dangers for hazardous chemicals 
in the workplace, appears to be the appropriate agency for this task. 
The implementation of local Biological Safety Committees will need more 
support, considering that there is already a noticeable decrease in enthusiasm 
among the scientific community to carry out this part of the Provisional Statement 
of the Asilomar Conference. It is unfortunate, in our view, that the Final 
Asilomar Statement does not mention broad based safety committees. Instead, matters 
of safety, education and training are left to the responsibility of the principal 
investigator. This is not really satisfactory. The Safety Committee would have 
to be designed based on the principle that workers have a right to seek assurances 
and reasonable proof that their health is not at risk. A person must be offered 
an administrative mechanism by which she or he "can blow the whistle", without 
endangering his or her job status. This mechanism could involve the funding agency 
immediately looking into reports of violation of the guidelines. Advise from 
NIOSH on how to set up such a mechanism of grievance would seem most appropriate 
at thi s time. 
Important and essential responsibilities of the local Safety Committee 
have been listed in the Current Guidelines of the Recombinant DNA Molecule Program 
Advisory Committee of the NIH. However, no mention is made as to the composition 
of the Safety Committee, nor to its possible role in the epidemiological monitoring 
[ 370 ] 
