DNA AND BIOLOGICAL WARFAE

The Federal Government’s chief advisory committee on gene-splicing policy went on record indirectly today as opposing any use of the research field’s powerful techniques for the purposes of biological warfare.

They declined, however, to adopt a proposal to put a prohibition against such uses into the national safety guidelines that govern the research. Instead, the committee voted to inform the director of the National Institutes of Health that an existing international convention prohibits development of biological weapons and that it was the sense of the committee, based on the available evidence, that the convention’s prohibitions were broad enough to cover all genesplicing work. The convention against biological warfare was adopted in 1972 by many countries, including the United States and Soviet Union. At that time, gene-splicing techniques did not yet exist.

The panel, called the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee, advises the director of the institutes on policy concerning gene-splicing, the field of research and development known technically as recombinant DNA technology. Its methods allow the modification, dissection and recombination of the genetic material DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid).

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