INTERAGENCY COMMITTEE ON RECOMBINANT DNA RESEARCH 
Minutes of Meeting 
November 4, 1976 
National Institutes of Health 
Bethesda, Maryland 
I. NIH Guidelines 
The first meeting of the Interagency Committee on Recombinant DNA 
Research was convened at the National Institutes of Health on 
November 4. The meeting, chaired by Dr. Donald S. Fredrickson, 
Director of the National Institutes of Health, was held from 
9;30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. The first half of the meeting was a review of 
the development of the NIH guidelines on recombinant DNA research 
and activities that were taken by the NIH after the release of the 
guidelines in June 1976. The last half of the meeting was devoted 
to a review and discussion of the roles and responsibilities of the 
Interagency Committee and the Committee’s future agenda. 
Dr. DeWitt Stetten, Jr., Deputy Director of the NIH and Chairman 
of the NIH Recombinant DNA Molecule Program Advisory Committee , 
reviewed the initial developments and guidelines in this research 
area. He briefly discussed the initial call by scientists for a 
voluntary moratorium on certain classes of experiments in recombinant 
DNA research and the international meeting held at the Asilomar 
Conference Center in Pacific Grove, Calif ornia,, in February 1975 
where initial guidelines were set pending formal guidelines to be 
developed by the NIH. Dr. Stetten also outlined the activities of 
the NIH Recombinant Advisory Committee that proposed guidelines on 
recombinant DNA research to the Director of the NIH in January 1976. 
Dr. Stetten concluded by noting that the Recombinant Advisory 
Committee has a number of important functions to perform under the 
NIH guidelines and continues to meet regularly to fulfill those 
responsibilities . 
Following Dr. Stetten's presentation, Dr. Fredrickson reviewed the 
events that culminated in the release of NIH guidelines in June. 
In order that there be an opportunity for public participation in 
the review of the proposed guidelines, a public hearing was held in 
February at the NIH that afforded several public interest groups 
and scientists an opportunity to comment on the proposed 
guidelines. That hearing and the extensive correspondence received 
by Dr. Fredrickson provided the basis for his review of the proposed 
NIH guidelines. The final guidelines released in June contained a 
number of revisions based on issues raised by the public commentators. 
Accompanying the release of the guidelines was a decision paper by 
Dr. Fredrickson outlining the basis for his decision on each of the 
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