In Our Opin ion 
SAN ANGELO STANDARD 
San Angelo, Texas, 6/24/76 
NIH Genetic Rules 
Were Needed Measure 
The National Institutes of Health Wednesday 
issued a series of long-awaited guidelines foi 
controversial types of genetic research, 
including outright bans on some particularly 
dangerous procedures. 
Genetic research is a scientific field which has 
taken off in recent years and offers vast potential 
in the field of health, as well as in other areas. It 
involves altering the gene structure of 
. organisms to give them characteristics they 
don't ordinarily have, or to remove undesirable 
characteristics. 
The manipulation is made possible by new 
tools and methods which enable scientists to look 
into the genetic structure of a cell and alter the 
spiral belix of deoxyribonucleic acid — the 
chemical that builds genes. 
A very simple example of what could be done 
through genetic manipulation would be some- 
thing like determining the color of a newborn 
child’s hair or eyes by altering the genes con- 
tained in the parents' sperm and egg 
While offering vast benefits, genetic research 
also holds the potential for ghastly horrors. It is 
entirely conceivable that by design or accident a 
virulent disease immune to any form of 
treatment could be loosed upon the world. 
It is to lessen such a likelihood that the NIH has 
issued its guidelines. The action came after 
scientists from all over the world expressed con- 
cern over the potential harm entailed in genetic 
research. Scientists were so concerned that, at 
the international meeting in 1975, they issued 
guidelinesof their own. 
The NIH guidelines are highly technical, but 
suffice it to say that they would outlaw com- 
pletely certain types of highly dangerous experi- 
ments and restrict others to highly controlled 
environments that minimize the possibility of 
accidents. 
Genes and the chemicals that make fhem up 
are the very building blocks of life itself. Their 
manipulation gives man an almost God-like 
potential to create new forms of life and to alter 
present forms into more desirable molds. 
As with any endeavor that promises great 
good, there is also the potential for great evil. 
The NIH guidelines released Wednesday are a 
concrete way of minimizing the chance that the 
evil will escape. TT»e guidelines were urgently 
needed and should now be stringently enforced 
Denver , 
POST 
Colo . 
6/23/76 
The new guidelines prohibit combining 
genes from certain risky disease orga- 
nisms into others, transfering drug-resis- 
tant traits of microorganisms that could 
compromise use of a drug to control 
disease, and forming recombinants with 
genes that can synthesize potent poisons. 
The new directions also prohibit, targe- 
% 
scale experiments— those with more than 
10 liters of culture— with recombinants 
known to make harmful products. 
However, NIH said specific large-scale 
experiments that could directly benefit 
'society may be allowed under special 
conditions with specific NIH approval 
The guidelines list four classes or 
laboratories in which the research can be 
done. Depending on the experiment and 
genetic material involved, the labors 
tories range from common college labs tq 
ones with elaborate systems of airlocki 
and filters resembling space capsules. 
The Recombinant Advisory Committee 
: at NIH, which helped put together the 
guidelines after conducting public hear- 
ings, will remain in existence to interpret 
by an international meeting of scientists the guidelines and answer questions that 
issued in 1975. ma y arise, Fredrickson said. 
DNA— deoxyribonucleic acid — is the 1 
chemical that forms genes, the basic 
units of heredity. Recombinant DNA mol- 
ecules result from recombining in a test 
WASHINGTON — (AP)— The National 
Institutes of Health (NIH) issued long- 
awaited g uideline s Wednesday for a con- 
troversial type of g enetic research . They 
include a ban on some experiments con- 
sidered too dangerous to perform. 
The new rules for recombinant DNA 
are designed to control what some see as 
the almost C.od-like potential of science to 
create new forms of life. 
CRITICS FEAR the research could cre- 
ate super disease organisms not found nat- 
urally and immune to all defenses against 
•them. Supporters say the research has 
vast scientific potential. They envision 
turning bacteria into little generators of 
■ \aluable proteins and hormones, such as 
insulin and blood clotting factor. 
Dr. Donald S. Fredrickson, NIH direc- 
tor, said the guidelines are effective im- 
mediately at NIH laboratories and those of 
its contractors and grantees. NIH said 
the guidelines are more stringent than 
proposals it circulated at the first of the 
year, and stricter than recommendations 
COURIER 
Evansville, Ind., 
Rules Issued to Ban 
Too Dangerous' DNA 
Research 
6/28/76 
putting, splitting genes 
spurs scientific debate 
By NICHOLAS WADE 
(A r*porftr for Selene* Moooiln*) 
L A TlmM WotMngton Pott torvic* 
In the next few weeks a new and adven- 
turesome technology will be unleashed on 
the world by way of guidelines issued at the 
command of the head of a minor federal 
agency. 
The technology is based on a method 
for creating new forms of life, a preroga- 
tive hitherto reserved for evolution 
Whereas new organisms arise in nature 
through the slow and haphazard reshuf- 
fling of genes, the method now available 
enables the scientist to manipulate (he 
genetic material directly by a technique of 
cutting and splicing. 
This presents benefits and risks on a 
scale probably comparable with those of 
harnessing the atom. The benefits, which 
are easily visible and near at hand, appear 
at present to outweigh the more nebulous 
and seemingly distant hazards. 
It would be untrue to say that the scien- 
tific community is divided on the merits of 
pushing ahead with the development of the 
technology Most scientists believe that the 
dangers are negligible or can be contained 
In fact, the present plans to proceed, in 
the form of guidelines to be issued soon by 
the director of the National. Institutes of 
Health, have only two serious critics. 
Y ET THE CRITICS happen to be two of 
the most distinguished of all the scientists 
involved in the decision-making process 
Also, unlike many of their colleagues, 
they have no personal interest in using the 
new techniques in their own research. 
Robert Sinsheimer, a member of the 
National Academy of Sciences and chair- 
man of the biology division at Cal-Tech. 
commented recently of the proposed NIH 
guidelines: 
“Obviously neither I nor anyone -else 
can say that if the present committee 
guidelines are adopted, disaster will 
ensue. I will say. though, that in my judg- 
ment, if the guidelines are adopted and 
nothing untoward happens, we will owe 
this success far more to good fortune than 
to human wisdom.” 
And Erwin Chargaff of Columbia Uni- 
versity. who holds the National Medal of 
Science, points out that new forms of life, 
once created, cannot be recalled from 
nature. 
“Have we the right to counteract, irre- 
versibly, the evolutionary wisdom of mil- 
lions of years, in order to satisfy the ambi- 
tion and curiosity of a few scientists?" he 
asks in a letter in Science. 
To do so, he believes, is a folly and a 
crime, an attack on the biosphere “so un- 
thinkable to previous generations, that I 
could only wish that mine had not been 
guilty of it.” 
WHAT HAS MADE the new technology 
possible is not so much man's cleverness 
as the accidental discovery of something in 
nature, a class of bacterial enzymes en- 
dowed with quite unexpected properties. 
The enzymes constitute a molecular-level 
scissors-and-paste kit for cutting and splic- 
ing the genetic material with undreamed 
of precision. 
The technique of aftM-mblmg new 
genetic messages known as “recombi 
nant DNA" molecules is a powerful 
research tool that will doubtless bring ns 
earliest users a crop of Nobel prizes and 
the like It also offers a cornucopia of pra< 
tical applications in the form of custom 
designing organisms for use in industry , 
agriculture and medicine 
Scientists first drew attention 10 the 
hazards two years ago when a group of 
American researchers called for a volun- 
tary moratorium until appropriate safety 
conditions could be established 
Scientists throughout the world have 
observed the moratorium and will proba 
bly follow closely the NIH guidelines that 
will bring it to an end 
AND YET, despite the two years of 
self-restraint, the guidelines about to be 
issued will allow almost all but (he most 
wildly dangerous experiments to proceed 
under strict but not grossly inconvenient 
safety conditions 
The public has had little effective op- 
portunity to share in the decision-making 
process, and the fundamental objections of 
inside critics such as Sinsheimer and Char 
gaff have been ignored without being spe- 
cifically rebutted 
What are the dangers of the new tech 
mque and the technology (hat will sprout 
'up from it? First, the new forms of life can 
be expected to escape quite regularly, par- 
ticularly from the less meticulous labora- 
tories. 
Even the most careful scientists be- 
come exposed to the organisms they work 
with, and the best available containmeni 
methods used in the Army's biological 
warfare laboratories at Fort Dietrich, for 
example, did not prevent 423 cases of infec- 
tion and 3 deaths over a period of 25 years 
Escape is made more certain by the 
circumstance that the bacterium to be 
used as host for many of the new life forms 
is Escherichia coll, a common inhabitant 
of the human got and nose 
If a human pandemic or some other 
“worst case " accident occurs, future histo- 
rians will never be able to understand why 
of all the bactenal species at our disposal , 
we made the most reckless possible- 
choice 
MOST OF THE NEW life forms will 
perish outside the laboratory, unless delib- 
erately designed to survive But some may 
find suitable niches, in our crop plants, in 
our domestic animals, or in human popula- 
tions At worst, the consequences could 
range from mass infection to the virtual 
eradication of a species. 
People worry about the proliferation of 
nuclear technology to more than a handful 
of countries. The “recombinant DNA" 
technique puts what will one day become 
an almost equally awesome technology 
into the hands of every biological research- 
er with access to a modem laboratory 
Sooner or later, one of these research- 
ers may try to put the technology to evil 
use But more to be feared is the do-gooder 
who attempts to take some unilateral ac 
non for what he conceives to be the benefit 
of mankind. 
ENQUIRER 
Cincinnati, Ohio, 6/24/76 
tube DNA from different species of life. 
Genes for specific inherited traits taken 
from one species are combined with those 
of another, usually by removing a gene 
from a higher organism and putting it 
into bacteria. When the modified bacteria 
reproduces, the offspring contain charac- 
teristics of the new gene. 
IT IS UNKNOWN how much recom- 
binant DNA research is going on, 
Fredrickson said, "but there are indica- 
lions that industry already is involved in 
this research to a wide extent.” t 
Fredrickson said private industry isn t 
required to report what kind of research 
it is doing, nor are the guidelines manda- 
tory for research outside NIH- “It is our 
hope that they will be effective as 
guidelines with voluntary compliance, ne 
said. 
NIH Issues Guidelines 
On Controversial 
Genetic Experiments 
[ 579 ] 
