3 
•re designed to afford protection with a vide margin of safety to workers 
and the environment. The NIH Guidelines were published in the Federal 
Re£ ister on July 7, 1976, for public comment. 
The NIH also prepared and filed in the Federal Register on 
September 9, 1976, a Draft Environmental Impact Statement on the Guidelines 
for public comment. The final NIH Environmental Impact Statement will be 
published shortly. In August 1976 the NIH published a volume containing 
the transcript of a public hearing held on the Guidelines as well as the 
correspondence received by the NIH Director on this matter prior to the 
release of the Guidelines in June. 
Ill . Federal Interagency Committee on Recombinant DNA Research 
The Interagency Committee on Recombinant DNA Research was created to 
address extension of the NIH Guidelines beyond the NIH to the public 
and private sectors. The Committee was convened by the Secretary of Health 
Education, and Welfare with the approval of the President. Dr. Donald S. 
Fredrickson, Director of NIH, serves as chairman at the Secretary's request 
The Interagency Committee is composed of representatives of Federal 
Departments and agencies that support or conduct recombinant DNA research, 
or that may do so in the future, and representatives of Federal Departments 
and agencies that have present or potential regulatory authority in this 
area. (The membership of the Committee is included in Appendix I.) The 
mandate of the Committee is to 
(1) review the nature and scope of Federal- and private-sector 
activities relating to recombinant DNA research; 
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