6724 Towne Lane Court 
McLean, Virginia 22101 
February 27, 1976 
Dr. DeWitt Stetten, Jr. 
Deputy Director for Science 
Building 1, Room 122 
National Institutes of Health 
Bethesda, Maryland 20014 
Dear Dr. Stetten: 
I am writing in reference to the proposed guidelines for research 
involving recombinant DNA molecules. Although I am the liaison 
officer from the National Academy of Sciences to the Recombinant DNA 
Molecule Program Advisory Committee of the National Institutes of 
Health and was present for most of the meeting in La Jolla in early 
December 1975, when the guidelines were drafted, several points 
occurred to me only during the discussions that took place on 
February 9-10, 1976, at the special meeting of the Advisory Committee 
to the Director of the NIH. 
1. On February 9, 1976, at the meeting of the Advisory Committee 
to the Director of the NIH, Dr. Robert G. Petersdorf discussed 
Escherichia coli as an infectious agent. He stated that Eh coli 
almos' ever causes disease in man, and that manipulation such as 
cathe rization is necessary for urinary tract infection with this 
organism to take place. Although I realize that the problem is not 
so much one of the pathogenicity or virulence of Eh coli per se, but 
of the hazards of using E . coli as a carrier of genetic information, 
particularly in its plasmids, I would like to add to what Dr. Petersdorf 
said, which, since it applied only to Eh coli infection in adult males, 
leaves the inaccurate impression that Eh coli is harmless. 
Infections of the urinary tract are common in the female at any 
age, but more so during pregnancy. Eh coli is one of the most common 
etiologic agents of urinary tract infection. The extent of Eh coli 
K-12 survival in the human urinary tract is not known, and it may 
not be possible to know. But limited survival of K-12 in the human 
gastrointestinal tract has been documented. Such survival would 
permit migration to the female urogenital organs. From what is known 
young women are at higher risk than others of infection by Eh coli . 
Most laboratory technicians are women in the peak of their reproductive 
years. One person raised the issue of informed consent with respect to 
persons working with recombinant DNA molecules and suggested that only 
male technicians be hired. This fails to make the point that if indeed 
there is a risk in working with Eh coli , young women in their re- 
productive years are at even greater risk, because of their normal 
susceptibility to infections of the urinary tract and because they 
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