2 
public commentators and witness testimony. This current review 
process will include additional special meetings between the 
DHEW DNA Committee and representatives of industry and 
environmental /occupational groups. 
Before examining proposed procedural revisions of interest to the 
Committee, Dr. Fredrickson briefly sumnar ized major technical 
changes in the Guidelines. 
• narrowed scope of definition, 
• flexibility for containment, 
• new nomenclature for host-vector systems in biological 
containment, and 
• containment guidelines for experiments that represent a 
movement toward agreement with European Guidelines for this 
research. 
II. Proposed Role of the Interagency Committee (IAC) in the Proposed 
Revised Guidelines 
A number of measures to encourage Federal agency participation in 
decisions on recombinant DNA research were outlined by 
Dr. Fredrickson. 
A. RAC Membership 
1. Recommendations for nomination of RAC members were requested in 
a Federal Register notice of July 1978. These nominations will 
be solicited annually and agencies are encouraged to propose 
names. As a result of this open process, two plant and 
agricultural scientists suggested by USDA have been added 
recently to the RAC. 
2. All member agencies of the Interagency Committee will be 
invited to nominate a liaison member on the RAC. (Some 
agencies currently have these.) This is to be a non-voting 
membership because the large number of Federal agencies would 
create too cumbersome a process for the operation of the RAC. 
Agency representatives, however, will be encouraged to 
participate in RAC discussion, stating their agency's concerns 
on scientific as well as other issues. 
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