Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee - 2/4/91 
Dr. McGarrity noted that this would then be published in the Federal Register as an 
action to be taken by the RAC at its next meeting. There being no further discussion on 
the motion. Dr. McGarrity called for a vote. The motion passed by a vote of 12 in favor, 
0 opposed, and 2 abstentions. 
Dr. McGarrity agreed with Dr. B. Murray in that Dr. McGarrity thought that tab 1420a 
was a representation of one person's perspective on the meeting of the subcommittee. It 
contained some factual misrepresentations of what was actually was said by people 
during the public hearings. He pointed out that Dr. Fredrickson did not recommend 
sunsetting the NIH Guidelines, but had been speaking in favor of the RAC removing 
itself from reviewing environmental release experiments. Dr. McGarrity complimented 
Mr. Mannix on his efforts to summarize the meeting but said his recollections often did 
not match those found in the document. 
Mr. Mannix responded that in attempting to write down his perspectives with the aim of 
being able to either reconvene the subcommittee or discuss them before presentation to 
the RAC. However, he was late in getting it around to people and therefore Dr. 
McGarrity was correct in characterizing this as the perspective of one individual. 
Dr. Schaechter said that, regardless of the consensus of views, this document was useful 
as a point of departure for discussing the issues contained in it. One of the crucial 
points in the document was whether the RAC ought to be reformed as a committee 
more akin to the HGTS. Dr. Schaechter asked to hear other opinions on this matter. 
Dr. Wivel noted that one of the major issues, when looking through all the comments 
was that of the question of changing the definition of "recombinant DNA." Opinions 
seemed to be split evenly on whether this should be done. He asked for a short 
discussion by the committee on how it thought about this issue after hearing and reading 
the public debate on it. 
Dr. Wivel noted that the issues were, on the one hand, that there were no new, unique 
risks associated with the new technologies that would justify changing the definition on 
grounds of safety issues. Increasing the breadth of the definition was seen as creating 
increased bureaucratic paperwork. On the other hand, there is concern that there are 
new ways being developed to introduce DNA into cells which require no oversight at all, 
and there needs to be a means to assess whether they involve sufficient risk to require 
continued oversight as they develop and evolve. 
Dr. B. Murray said that she would be happy leaving the definition unchanged for 
microorganisms, but that she had a problem with leaving it unchanged for instances 
where recombinant DNA is used for human gene interventions. 
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Recombinant DNA Research, Volume 14 
