Feelings at Asilomar meeting, Herbert Boyer

Interviewee: Herbert Boyer. Biotech pioneer Herb Boyer recounts how he felt at the Asilomar meeting. (DNAi Location: Manipulation > Revolution > Putting it Together > Herb Boyer's feelings about Asilomar)

I think we all went in with a state of mind not knowing much about microbiology, infectious diseases and so on. There was a lot of speculation and the one thing that occurred to me during this meeting was that out of this I think there was an attempt to self-regulate science to avoid any government regulation and, and in a way that seemed to be self-serving to me. That's just my opinion, you know. I, I found it to be a very dire experience, I didn't sleep, you know, much more than a couple of hours the whole time we were there, found it to be somewhat depressing. And out of it came a set of guidelines for experimental research which have since been dispensed with, as far as I know.

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