Word: nih
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Containment facilities for such research are springing up around the country, specially designed under guidelines specified by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which set out in 1975 to prevent disasters that might occur if some of the research material should escape from the laboratories. Within two months, P-3 containment facilities for recombinant DNA research on the fourth floor of the Biological Laboratories will be ready for safety inspection. At about the same time these labs will be undergoing investigation, two even more sophisticated laboratories in Bethesda, Md., and Fort Dixon, Texas, idle since biological warfare research was banned...
Ever since July 1974, when they first called public attention to the possible hazards of their research, the recombinant DNA researchers have kept non-scientists almost completely outside of the regulatory process. For example, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Recombinant DNA Molecule Program Advisory Committee had only one non-scientist among 16 members. Furthermore, a recombinant researcher, David Hogness of Stanford, headed a subcommittee which drafted guidelines for the research. Jonathan King of Science for the People likened the situation to "having the chairman of General Motors write the specifications for safety belts...
Missing from Rogers are unpublished NIH figures which show that as of January 1 of this year Harvard researchers' grants from the NIH for ongoing recombinant DNA research totaled $528.627. Stanford's biochemists bad NIH grants for recombinant DNA projects totaling...
Restrictions on research would threaten not only millions in grant support, but would also hurt the recombinant DNA researchers' chances for honor and recognition. Wallace P. Rowe, a member of the NIH Advisory Committee, neatly summarized the importance of the research to young molecular geneticists: "You're dead...
...additional risk when scientists become convinced that their experiments' potential for ill effect is relatively small. They become casual and careless, discarding safety in the interest of efficiency. The September 30, 1977 issue of Science reported that this type of attitude has already led to a breach of the NIH safety rules. Out of either carelessness or intentional neglect researchers in the biochemistry and biophysics departments of the University of California at San Francisco used a noncertified biological component and failed to record its use in the official logbook...