Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee - 10/16/90 
organizations, and members of industry. He also noted that there 
were a large number of comments from the general public and 
organizations representing the general public. 
Dr. McGarrity noted that the timeliness of modifications to the 
NIH Guidelines and making them easier to understand were of 
concern, as well as the educational role of the RAC. He stressed 
that the role of the RAC as a truly public forxim was mentioned 
repeatedly. 
Dr. McGarrity said the meetings were educational. He felt they 
showed that the RAC has well served its mandate, and that it 
should continue to evolve and serve the NIH and the general 
public in a productive way in the decade of the 1990s and beyond. 
He then called on Mr. earner to express his views on the meeting 
in Los Angeles. Mr. earner said the single most important topic 
presented at both UCLA and Stanford was the issue of sunsetting 
the RAC and the NIH Guidelines , He said he believed the RAC 
should have a study committee assigned to thinking about its 
future and that such a study should take no more than a year. He 
said he felt the RAC and the standards that it has set have been 
too useful to eliminate without careful thought. 
Dr. Geiduschek said he came away with the sense that there was no 
sense of crisis among the participants at the meeting at Stanford 
and that they felt the RAC served as some protection to them at 
the local level by being a national group which is available to 
consider rational scientific issues of biotechnology. 
Dr. Carmen noted that the meeting in Chicago included three 
chairmen of IBCs who expressed an opinion that the RAC, over the 
years, had been unduly process-oriented and that a product-based 
risk assessment should be given more attention. He said that 
there was no consideration being given to human gene therapy 
protocols by the universities represented at the meeting. The 
feeling was that if such protocols were submitted for IBC review 
that they would look to the NIH, the RAC and Human Gene Therapy 
Subcommittee for guidance. He said there was some uncertainty 
expressed with regard to whether additional review responsibility 
should be placed on the IBCs at this meeting. 
Dr. Hirano said that she noticed a diversity of opinions among 
the IBCs of the different universities represented at the Chicago 
meeting in relation to increasing the role of the IBCs in review 
of recombinant DNA research. She noted that there was confusion 
voiced by representatives of universities over the issue of 
planned release experiments. With the advent of USDA Guidelines, 
there was confusion about where and to whom protocols should be 
submitted. Further, there is doubt about what is required for 
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