NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 
2101 CONSTITUTION AVENUE 
WASHINGTON, D. C. 20418 
INSTITUTE OF MEDICINE 
October 2, 1979 
Jane K. Setlow, Ph.D. 
Biologist 
Brookhaven National Laboratory 
Upton, Long Island 
New York 11973 
Chairman 
Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee 
Dear Dr. Setlow: 
I am writing in reference to the meeting of the Recombinant DNA Advisory 
Comnittee held on September 6 to 7, 1979. As you know, I am a new member of 
that committee and attended for the first time on September 7. At this time, 
I wanted to transmit to you one or two thoughts and concerns about the meeting 
that I attended. 
Unfortunately, I could not be notified of my appointment to the Committee 
until August 31. Because of the tight timing, I was unable to change an 
important prior commitment for September 6th and for the afternoon of September 
7th, so that I was only present for one-half day of the two-day meeting. I 
did drive to the NIH to pick up tne materials that had been mailed to the 
committee in preparation for the meeting, and reviewed them as best I could 
prior to September 7th. I also had a conversation with Dr. Talbot about the 
structure of the committee and the general thrust of the agenda for that 
particular meeting. Nonetheless, at the meeting I felt at a loss on many of 
the items that came up for a vote, because I could not place the discussion 
in the context of what had gone on before even though I had read the pertinent 
materials. The pressure to complete the crowded agenda made it impossible to 
brief the new members on each item, or perhaps that had already taken place 
the previous day. I was quite concerned to find that the part of the agenda 
that dealt with procedures, originally scheduled for Thursday the 6th prior 
to the discussion on Proposed Exemption for E. Coli K-12 Host Vector Systems, 
was rescheduled for Friday, so that actually the report of the working group 
on RAC procedures came after the vote on the proposed exemption for E. Coli 
K-12. The action that was taken on Septembei 7th on voting procedures did 
not ^change existing voting procedures, and there must have been other reasons 
for the change of schedule. However, it seems to me that the discussion on 
procedures relevant to voting on important issues would have made more sense 
before an important vote was taken. I was also concerned because I realized sub- 
sequently that of the total RAC membership of 24 (is there one slot still 
open?), only 15 were present for the vote on Exemption of E. Coli K-12 Host 
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