Okay, so the chances of someone producing something dangerous are very small.

But if they do...

It's just not worth the risk IMO.

By that token why don't you ban everything? Do you know how easy it is to make harmful substances/explosives out of stuff you find in the kitchen/home?

By the same token, why don't we allow everything? See what people fancy doing, and how much harm we can cause to both ourselves and the environment?

There's got to be a balance. Having people who don't know what they are doing messing around with the structure of our very being just sounds ridiculous to me. We don't even let people behind the wheel of a car before they can prove they know what they are doing!

Yes, we're talking about bacteria. Presently harmless ones. What about ones like E.Coli, which are terribly easy to propagate?
As for survival times, they can be long enough given the right environments. That's why we tend to be keen on washing our hands and keeping kitchen work surfaces clean and dry. Bacteria thrive outside the lab. Look at studies that have been done with public transport.

Saying 'harmless bacteria' is like same 'harmless chemicals' - yes, some are, but not all.

So they have to create them, then using the agar jelly etc multiply them all the time maintaining a constant condition for them

You can make far more harmful bacteria by leaving some chicken to go off.

I think I caught the lurgy from someone on the tube last week. I'm pretty sure if I sneeze on a load of people, some of them will catch it. Maybe they'll pass it on to an elderly relative who'll die.

However, my snot isn't fluorescent and I think the public are more scared of things that glow in the dark.

Gene splicing is quite scary to be honest, but there's not much anyone can do to prevent people experimenting. It's not like building a nuclear device where you need highly refined exotic elements; organic stuff is all around us and there's some pretty weird biology going on in my guts even as I type this.