COVINGTON 5. BURLING 
Donald S. Fredrickson, M.D. 
March 3, 1978 
Page Twelve 
similarly concludes (at pages 36-37) that this statutory 
provision would provide adequate protection against public 
disclosure of any confidential business information. Num- 
erous other government agencies daily receive confidential 
commercial information, and retain it as confidential with- 
out public disclosure, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. 1905 and other 
similar confidentiality provisions of the law. Thus, there 
is no reason why NIH should hesitate to amend the Guidelines 
to provide for full participation of industry and other 
researchers, with adequate protection for all confidential 
and trade secret information that might be furnished to NIH 
as a result, 
s c 
4. It is important that the Guidelines assure 
adequate public representation on, and access to, the local 
biohazards committee. I believe that this can be accom- 
plished without sacrificing the confidentiality needed to 
protect valid trade secret and commercial information. 
Disclosure to a biohazards committee, which includes lay 
persons from the community, is uniformly regarded as not 
destroying the confidentiality of the information disclosed. 
Those portions of a meeting dealing specifically with con- 
fidential information can, of course, be closed to the general 
public. Portions of the meetings dealing with broad safety 
and other policy issues, on the other hand, can be opened 
without fear of disclosing confidential information. This 
distinction is uniformly followed by all Federal advisory 
committees under the Federal Advisory Committee Act today, 
without serious difficulty. 
Thus, the Guidelines should specify that public 
notice is required for all meetings of the biohazards com- 
mittee, giving the time, place, and agenda for the meeting. 
The notice should also specify what portions of the meeting 
will be open and closed and, if possible, state that the 
open portions will be held first. These requirements are 
now applicable to all Federal advisory committees. 
Finally, public notice should be given whenever a 
vacancy exists on a biohazards committee, so that interested 
persons can submit nominations for persons to be considered 
for the vacancy. Those nominations should not be binding, 
and the ultimate composition of the biohazards committee 
should be chosen in a way that reflects adequate balance and 
expertise. Nonetheless, public participation in the 
[Appendix A — 250] 
