SEPTEMBER 6-7 - MINUTES OF MEETING 
28 
Working Group and Subcommittee 
Drs. Ahmed and Zaitlin began the presentation of this Part of the Report 
by noting that there are presently only three chartered subcommittees 
associated with the RAC. There are also ad hoc working groups instituted 
by the chair for a limited period of time to deal with a particular 
problem. Dr. Ahmed asked whether some of the subcommittees meet by a 
conference call and if so hew a record of these meetings is kept. 
Dr. Setlow responded that some of the meetings are conducted by a conference 
call, and when this occurs, the chairman of that particular subcommittee 
keeps a record of the meetings. Dr. Walters endorsed the use of conference 
calls. Dr. Ahmed moved adoption of this section. The RAC accepted this 
motion by a vote of seventeen for, none opposed, with one abstention. The 
text as adopted appears as Part V of Attachment III to these minutes. 
Presentation of Agenda Materials to the RAC 
Dr. Zaitlin introduced Part VI of the Report dealing with the problem of 
the large amount of technical information which the RAC has to evaluate. 
The Working Group asked that submitters of proposals provide a reasonable 
s urinary of their proposal. ORDA was asked to evaluate the summary. If 
the summary is not suitable, ORDA is requested to contact the submitter 
and offer guidance. The second suggestion of the Working Group was that 
primary reviewers be encouraged to provide written summaries of the 
reviewed material. Dr. Zaitlin made the motion that this section be 
adopted by the RAC. Dr. Walters suggested an amendment changing the 
phrase "how this proposal is expected to alter existing guidelines" to 
"hew this proposal relates to existing guidelines." Dr. Zaitlin accepted 
this amendment. The motion was called and the RAC accepted this motion 
by a vote of seventeen for, none opposed, with no abstentions. The text 
as adopted appears as Part VI of Attachment III to these minutes. 
XIV. RISK- ASSESSMENT! REPORT 
Mr. Thornton presented a report from the Risk-Assessment Subcommittee. 
He noted that in addition to the subcommittee members (Drs. Baltimore, 
Gottesman, Krimsky, Williams, and Mr. Thornton), Dr. Setlow and Dr. Young 
were present at the last meeting of the Risk-Assessment Subcommittee. 
The purpose of the meeting was to review the progress of the risk-assessment 
work being accomplished by the NIH. The report of the Subcommittee is 
attached (Attachment IV). The Risk-Assessment Subcommittee recommended 
a Falmouth type conference on hormone-producing strains of _E. coli and 
on autoantibodies. A report frem Drs. Martin and Rowe concerning the 
polyoma risk-assessment experiments and future studies on C-type virus 
and Friend virus was presented to the Subcomittee. Finally, Mr. Thornton 
noted that the Risk-Assessment Subcommittee recommends studying areas 
other than those dealing with E. coli. The Subcommittee felt that additional 
data are needed on which to construct a risk-assessment evaluation procedure. 
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