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1 in the decision-making. 
2 In that regard, the Director's Advisory 
3 Committee does not adequately substitute for public 
4 involvement on the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee. 
5 Once again, decisions are made by the time the public 
6 gets input. It is this kind of public participation 
7 that has led to distrust of the policies of the NIH. 
8 Public membership must be substantially 
9 increased on the RAC. As the Stevenson subcommittee 
10 concluded, "The technical and social policy aspects 
11 of even physical and biological containment standards, 
12 or host-vector approval, cannot be readily distinguished." 
13 Scientific decisions cannot and should not be separated 
14 from their social and political context. In attempting 
15 to do so, the NIH has insured the decisions were made 
16 simply in a less representative social and political 
17 context. 
18 The Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee. The 
19 RAC has turned out to be much less conservative than the 
20 Director of NIH. In many cases they went further in the 
21 PRG-RAC than the Director finally allowed in the PRG-NIH . 
22 Advisory committees have been often expected to counter- 
23 balance internal conflicts of interest, and in this 
24 case insure the public health and safety is being adequately 
25 considered. Unfortunately, the RAC does not seem to be 
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