30 
therefore, don’t care about diseases that affect the world. I think 
if anybody is familiar with rny writings of books over the years you 
knew that's just not true." 
Mr. Rifkin said: 
"...the real question here that I think that we have to deal with is a 
question that's been raised not just by me; it's been raised in several 
forums. If you get a chance to read, for example, the Bulletin of 
Atomic Scientists, vhich is rather a distinguished journal of science, 
you'll find there was a long article in the November issue by 
Dr. Sinsheimer of the University of California and another historian 
where they raised some problems about convertibility and raise some 
very specific suggestions about what might be done by various Government 
agencies to try and address this issue, yet it still has not been 
addressed in this carmittee as of today." 
Mr. Rifkin added that: 
"In terms of a nuisance factor... We are all American taxpayers. We are 
citizens. We ccme in front of this committee both as professionals 
and lay people to lay out our concerns. I have legitimate concerns. 
You might totally disagree with them. You might have a totally 
different perspective. But we owe it to each other to discuss these 
and in each case when you have decided and voted I have not said another 
thing on that particular area. But I will continue to be here if I 
think that the perspectives that I want covered are not covered by 
this canmittee, including this one, and I hope at some point you discuss 
the convertibility of this technology for military purposes." 
It had previously been moved and seconded that the RAC approve the 
recarmendation of the Working Group on Ttoxins that Eh_ coli host-vector 
systems expressing the Shiga toxin gene may be removed from P3 to P2 
containment under the following conditions: 
(1) that the amount of toxin produced by the modified host- vector 
system be no greater than that produced by the positive control 
strains 933 E. coli 0157H7 grown and measured under optimal condi- 
tions; and 
(2) the cloning vehicle is to be an EKl vector preferrably belonging 
to the class of poorly mobilizable plasmids such as pBR322, 
pBR328, and pBR325. 
By a vote of twenty-one in favor, one opposed, and one abstention, 
the RAC accepted the motion. 
Dr. Gottesman then moved acceptance of the third item of the April 4, 1984, 
request, i.e., to remove nontoxinogenic fragments of the structural gene(s) 
[483] 
