The Guideline Dilemma

Although the Harvard P-3 laboratory has opened its doors to recombinant DNA researchers at the University, many of the scientists who plan to use the lab may not be exactly sure what safety regulations should be followed. They're not the only ones confused, for even Cambridge administrators cannot agree over which set of regulations researchers may have to follow.

For three years, scientists and legislators have intermittently cooperated and struggled with each other to establish uniform guidelines for recombinant DNA research. Next week, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) plans to release a final version of its guidelines for genesplicing research. These new regulations substantially ease research precautions, in accordance with the pleas--and lobbying--of much of the scientific community.

In many ways, the battle over recombinant DNA regulation begins and ends in Cambridge. In the early 70s, as recombinant DNA technology rapidly developed, scientists began to consider the potential risks of genetically combining organisms with different characteristics. Scientists petitioned the NIH, the federal agency that funds most scientific research, to develop a set of guidelines for recombinant DNA research. When Harvard proposed to build the $600,000 special research laboratory three years ago, then-Mayor Alfred E. Vellucci heard about the recombinant DNA safety debate and questioned whether scientists should be allowed to perform recombinant DNA experiments in Cambridge.

Vellucci focused his efforts on the proposal for the P-3 lab. In a series of angry and emotional Cambridge City Council meetings, he confronted Harvard scientists with accusations of arrogance and indifference toward the Cambridge community. The meetings resulted in a nine-month moratorium on all recombinant DNA experiments in Cambridge while a review board drew up a Cambridge ordinance regulating such experiments.

The Cambridge ordinance, still in effect today, follows the guidelines established in 1976 by NIH, adding a Cambridge Biohazards Committee to review all recombinant DNA experiments and to monitor the safety precautions in the P-3 lab.

However, with the expected publication of new, more relaxed guidelines, no one seems to know whether the Cambridge ordinance applies to the stricter 1976 rules or to the looser 1978 strictures. Nor do scientists agree on the justification for the new guidelines. While Walter Gilbert '53. American Cancer Society Professor of Molecular Biology, hails the new guidelines as considerably more sensible than in the past, dissident scientists like Jonathan King, professor of microbiology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says the new guidelines are based not on new scientific evidence but on scientists' lobbying against restrictive guidelines.

With the scientific community at odds over the new guidelines, a similar controversy surrounds the interpretation of the Cambridge ordinance. Sheldon Krimsky, one of the members of the review board that drew up the ordinance, says the Cambridge rule is specifically tied to the 1976 guidelines. "The way it stands now, the city has to revise the ordinance or institutions doing research will have to conform to the 1976 guidelines." Parker Coddington of the Government and Community Affairs Office, says, "The new guidelines would in no way change the application of the ordinance to the old guidelines because the guidelines do not pre-empt city or state laws." But Donald Dressler, chairman of the Cambridge Biohazards Committee, says he assumes the 1978 guidelines will apply under the ordinance.

Harvard scientists, fearful of competition from universities in cities with less stringent DNA regulations, are pushing hard for enforcement of the latest guidelines. If Vellucci's past behavior is any clue, he will strenuously resist any attempts to change the ordinance. Krimsky says, "This whole issue of the ordinance could be a repeat of two years ago." That confrontation between Harvard and Cambridge left quite a few scars, and neither the University nor the city wants a repeat performance. But they may have no choice.