'December 10, 1983 
The Nation. 
Attachment II - Page 17 
60J 
there be strong military pressure in the 1990s to abrogate the 
1972 convention.” 
A Lack of Oversight 
Gearly, international law is inadequate to curb biological 
warfare in* general, and the use of gene-splicing to that 
end in particular. What about U.S. law? Recombinant 
DNA work in this country is regulated by the National In- 
stitutes of Health; compliance with its guidelines is man- 
datory for projects it funds but voluntary for the military 
and private industry. The guidelines, administered by the 
Office of Recombinant DNA Activities, are commonly 
thought to eliminate virtually all risks associated with the 
I gene-splicing process. 
But Robert L. Sinsheimer, chancellor of the University of 
California at Santa Cruz and a biophysicist who played a 
key role in developing the N.I.H. guidelines in 1975, fears 
i that a series of revisions since then have irrevocably weak- 
ened them. “I think they’ve been diluted to a point where 
they’re almost meaningless,” he told me. 
The degree of protection the guidelines can provide 
depends on the effectiveness of the oversight. The vast ma- 
jority of recombinant DNA experiments are supervised by 
local institutional biosafety committees (there is one at each 
research facility registered with ORDA). A committee must 
have at least five members, and at least two of those must not 
be affiliated with the institution they supervise. A Recombi- 
nant DNA Advisory Committee (RAC) of leading scientists 
evaluates the most potentially dangerous or novel ideas and 
reports the results to ORDA. But neither ORDA nor RAC 
Is required to review the decisions of the local biosafety 
i committees. 
The Defense Department says its policy is to comply fully 
with the N.I.H. guidelines, but that is open to question. By 
chance, I learned recently of a serious violation by the 
Army. According to Army records, the Illinois Institute of 
Technology conducted gene-splicing research on nerve gas 
•detoxification throughout 1982 without registering a local 
committee with ORDA (it finally did so in October 1983). 
In July 1982, a heated debate broke out within RAC. 
Committee members Goldstein and Richard Novick of New 
York’s Public Health Research Institute sought an amend- 
ment to the guidelines, prohibiting “the construction of 
biological weapons by molecular cloning.” The proposal 
was rejected by the rest of the committee on the grounds 
that the 1972 convention was already sufficiently broad to 
cover that activity. 
Yet William Gartlan d, director o f ORDA, says his agency 
has neve r provid ed RA C with the De fense Depa rtme nt’s an- 
nual C.B.W. re ports— the only up-to-da te pu blic r ecord o f 
the mi litary’s actTvItlysTrTT hc fieTd. 'To~Goldstein, who left 
RAC in 1982, this is a serious sin of omission. “ How ca n 
they (RAC) make an intelligent decision,” he asks, “if they 
don* rimow wHai *s g'oirig~on?" I rf i [s en tlreh i s to ry , the com - 
mitteehas reviewed only one proposal for military research. 
f n "October 19 82~RAC3ppcoved-HaIvaird- 0 mvcrsity2 
proposal to clone the diphtherial toxin gene. Goldst ein’s 
concerns seem tcTgain credence upon reading the minutes 
oT~th aT meetrh&r The comm ittee dealt exclusively with 
the question of whet her suc h an ^^nment coul d be_cprL-. 
ducted~safely, ignorin g diphther ia toxin’s potential use in 
biolo gical warfare and the imp lications of the experime nt 
for the^treaty. 
The lack of proper oversight raises a more dangerous pos- 
sibility— that the D.O.D. is concealing research w ith offen- 
sive applications by devising related but more politically 
palatable research goals. 
A more vigilant eye on D.O.D. efforts in this emerging 
field is thus badly needed. If the w-ork is wholly defensive— 
and in today’s world some defense against C.B.W. attack is 
justifiable — then placing all research under the direct con- 
trol of the N.I.H. would be a first step toward insuring that 
it stays defensive, of high quality and out of the D.O.D.’s 
mischievous hands. But the only effective way to halt re- 
search in biological warfare is to replace each nation’s weap- 
ons apparatus with internationally-sponsored and Super- 
vised defense laboratories. Only this will end the threat posed 
by chemical and biological warfare. G 
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