THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN 
LYNDON B. JOHNSON SCHOOL OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS 
AUSTIN, TEXAS 78712 
March 26, 1976 
Dr. DeWitt Stetten, Jr. 
Deputy Director for Science 
Department of Health, Education, 
and Welfare 
Public Health Service 
National Institutes of Health 
Bethesda, Maryland 20014 
Dear Dr. Stetten: 
I am constrained to write to you for two reasons; 
(1) I cannot be present at the April 1-2 meeting; (2) I 
have concerns about safety in recombinant research that 
reach beyond issues to be discussed at the meeting. More- 
over, you have requested that I send you a memo and that 
it treat particularly problems of implementation. 
1. Technical Elements in the Guidelines 
I left the meeting on February 9 and 10 appreci- 
ative of the high commendation for my colleagues on the 
Advisory Committee for the product they had produced and 
the consciousness of the public welfare that had prevailed 
in their deliberations. At the same time I say that the 
standards were in a number of instances not high or strict 
enough to win acceptance by informed professional persons, 
and by lay persons in addition to myself. I believe that 
the Advisory Committee should opt for strictness at this 
stage, first to win professional and lay acceptance, and 
second because experience in other programs shows that it 
is more difficult to tighten than to relax restrictions. 
Already, we have seen this problem raised with respect to 
use of cloned materials meeting Asimilar standards, but 
not those in the present guidelines. 
a. The comments confirmed my impressions that 
there was little physical protection in P2 labor- 
atories. Dr. Barkley's committee will undoubtedly 
add clarity to the definition of a P2 laboratory 
and perhaps also tighten the requirements for such 
a designation. Beyond this, the issues presented by 
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