DNA Is Here to Stay

Mayor Alfred E. Vellucci's opposition to recombinant DNA research in the Cambridge city limits is well-known, and Vellucci fought hard for his proposal to ban the experimentation.

But when all the votes were counted at the City Council meeting last Monday, the mayor had to admit defeat--even he voted for the ordinance that allows the controversial gene-splicing research to continue at MIT and Harvard--and Vellucci's vote made the decision unanimous.

All but three of the 17 proposed amendments to the pending ordinance regulating the experiments had breezed through a special meeting of the council's Ordinance Committee before the regular council meeting, including the eight recommended by the Cambridge Experimentation Review Board (CERB). Those eight now form the basis of the law.

The new ordinance specifies gene-splicing research must be done according to the National Institute of Health (NIH) regulations, supplemented by special strictures recommended by the CERB, basically forbidding recombinant DNA experimentation above a level that requires a p-3 lab level and an EK-2 level of containment.

A p-3 lab is the second highest level of safety, with limited access, sterilization equipment, and a special waste disposal system. EK-2 is a host-bacteria, found in the human gut, and used as a containment level in gene-splicing research.

The ordinance also sets up a Cambridge Biohazards Committee to review and certify all research.

"We were just hoping we could reach an agreement," City Councilor Barbara J. Ackerman, who was chairman of the special sub-committee reviewing the proposed DNA ordinance, said yesterday.

The fiercest debate during the relatively calm meeting was over money--specifically, over who would pay for the biohazards committee that will regulate the experiments. Vellucci said the responsibility lay with Harvard and MIT, and quoted figures of $11,000 to $24,000 a year for the committee's expenses.

But other councilors disagreed, and City Councilor Francis H. Duehay '55 suggested there would be a conflict of interest if the institution doing the research also paid for its regulation.

Donald C. Moulton, assistant vice president for community affairs, said last week that he felt the expenses would probably be higher than those Vellucci quoted, and that the money would be sought from "sources in the Federal government, outside of the NIH, and perhaps from private foundations."

Daniel J. Hayes, chairman of the CERB, the citizen's panel that supplied the recommendations to the council, said yesterday he was pleased the recommendations had passed the council unanimously.

"Our work is complete," he said, adding "my only job now is to talk to interviewers."

Harvard reaction to the decision was reserved. It appeared the decision was expected, at least by several professors who had opposed the research or urged caution in the past, including Richard C. Lewontin '50, professor of Biology, and Everett I. Mendelsohn, professor of History and Science.

And it really doesn't make much difference that the moratorium is over, at least to Harvard. Although MIT labs have been ready since late December, the Harvard labs will not be completed until early June.

But the continuance of the research is assured--and Ackerman had the last word on it.

"If we had taken the step of banning the research, I don't think it would be a serious crime, but I do think this decision will be taken more seriously by other jurisdictions, other cities planning regulating DNA research," she said.

Matthew S. Meselson, chairman of the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department and one of the research's foremost proponents, could not be reached for comment.