-4- 
will have no assurance that opportunity for public comment will be 
provided. If pressure for a quick decision is strong or NIH wishes 
to avoid public scrutiny, the guidelines enable it to make decisions 
in secret. In addition, valuable resources are likely to be wasted 
fighting out the mechanism of "appropriate opportunity for public * 
comment," each time the opportunity is given 
As an example of how public participation mechanisms should be 
constructed, EDF proposes the following mechanism for decisions con- 
cerning exceptions from prohibited experiments. 
Within 10 days of receipt of an application for an exception 
from a class of prohibited experiments, NIH should publish in the 
Federal Register notice of the receipt, details of where the material 
submitted in support of the exception can be obtained and the -closing 
date of the public comment period. At a minimum / the comment period 
should be 45 calendar days. Final notice of agency action should 
also be published in the Federal Register . All material submitted to 
NIH should be available to the public. 
Our third area of concern is the membership of RAC. The guide- 
• T 
lines (43 Fed . Reg . 33086 and 33087) describe the functions of RAC. 
They include recommending revisions in the guidelines, exceptions 
from prohibited experiments and exemptions from the guidelines. 
These decisions involve weighing both social and scientific risks 
and benefits. This is especially true for allowing exceptions 
from classes of prohibited experiments . Such decisions are clearly 
not purely scientific ones. As such, RAC must include non-scientist 
members who adequately represent the interests of the general public. 
The guidelines do not provide for this. They do not contain any 
provisions for selecting RAC members. (Again, the Director's decision 
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