3 
I. CALL TO ORDER AND OPENING REMARKS 
Mr. Thornton introduced a new RAC member, Dr. Nina Fedoroff, Carnegie 
Institution of Washington, and Dr. Vernon Knight, Baylor College of 
Medicine, Texas Medical Center, an ad hoc consultant. 
II. MINUTES OF THE JUNE 5-6, 1980 MEETING 
Ms. Cason said she found the draft minutes (tab 939) of the June 5-6, 1980 
RAC meeting to be complete with no substantive errors. Ms. Cason moved 
approval of the minutes with suggested corrections of typographical errors. 
The minutes were unanimously accepted. 
III. SURVEY OF INSTITUTIONAL BIOSAFETY COMMITTEES IN CALIFORNIA 
Mr. Thornton invited Dr. Diana Dutton, Health Services Research, Stanford 
University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, to present the results 
(tab 937) of the survey of California Institutional Biosafety Committees 
(IBCs). Ct. Dutton said a group at Stanford University began about two 
years ago to study the process of policy making in biomedical innovation, 
particularly the public's role in the process. The group viewed the 
mandating of IBC composition by the 1978 National Institutes of Health 
(NIH) Guidelines as an experiment in local public participation in science 
regulation. She emphasized that the findings she would present to the RAC 
were suggestive but not definitive. 
Dr. Dutton said the survey consisted of a questionnaire sent to all IBC 
chairpersons in California, and a separate questionnaire sent to all 
nonaf filiated members of California IBCs. Ninety-five percent of all 
IBC chairpersons responded (19 responses out of 20 surveyed) as did 
ninety-two percent of all non-af filiated members contacted (45 out of 49). 
Some of the findings were summarized in a document which Dr. Dutton dis- 
tributed at the meeting (Attachment II). 
The average IBC is composed of eleven members. The majority of conmittee 
members are scientists: twenty-eight percent are "recombinant ENA scien- 
tists," and twenty-seven percent are "other life scientists." Public 
health officials constitute twelve percent of the typical committee. 
Other categories of membership include students, laboratory workers, local 
citizens, etc. 
The majority of IBC chairpersons (56%) indicated that the IBC had no 
relationship to local government. The average number of meeting^ held in 
1979 was 4.3. On the average, sixty-three percent of the meetings were 
not regularly scheduled. Four of the nineteen conmittee chairpersons 
indicated that some meetings were held by telephone or in writing. The 
agenda of the typical meeting was roughly divided equally between review 
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