CENTRAL RESEARCH 
PFIZER INC EASTERN POINT ROAD GROTON CONNECTICUT 06340 
203- 445 5611 
RICHARD L HINMAN. Ph D 
Senior Vice President 
Chemical Products Research and Development 
January 18, 1983 
Dr. William J. Gartland, Jr. 
Director, Office of Recombinant DNA Activities 
Building 31, Room 4A52 
National Institutes of Health 
Bethesda, MD 20205 
Dear Dr. Gartland: 
This is in response to your undated memo of last Fall, soliciting views of 
IBC chairpersons as to how IBC ' s are functioning under the NIH Guidelines 
for Research Involving Recombinant DNA Molecules as revised during 1982. 
Our experience is generally supportive to the revised Guidelines and we feel 
they are well balanced in respect of the vast majority of experiments covered. 
We have no disagreement with specific containment recommendations and find 
that the IBC can handle its review function with a modest effort. At this 
time our IBC meets routinely approximately twice a year with the capability 
of convening on short notice, if necessary to address specific issues. 
The Pfizer IBC has no other responsibilities at this time. General biosafety 
concerns for the overall Central Research operation are handled by a different 
group because the relevant issues tend to be much wider in scope than safety 
considerations concerned solely with recombinant DNA activities. 
P.S. As a minor editorial point, I would like to call your attention to the 
fact that the title of Section III-C calls for notification of the local IBC 
simultaneously with initiation of the experiment. The following text does not 
make this point clear, however. 
/jd 
Richard L . Hinman 
