Experiments involving the manipulation of human germ-line 
cells pose sufficiently important ethical and social questions 
that they require the kind of discussion necessary to alter a 
section of the guidelines , not merely a recommendation on how 
to proceed with a specific proposal. 
My final point concerns public participation in these 
decisions. From my experience as the Director of a public 
interest organization that receives numerous phone calls and 
letters on this issue from a wide representation of people, my 
reading of concern of the individuals we are in contact with 
is that there is: 1) not a significant amount of public 
opposition to somatic therapy for life threatening or severely 
disabling conditions, 2) a greater concern for use of somatic 
therapy for mild disorders and, 3) a feeling of grave 
apprehension of germ line alterations. 
The process of review in the United States for these 
types of experiments is the most open of any industrialized 
nation, and for that we can be proud. But, we still have not 
devised a mechanism for concerned citizens to participate in 
the discussion of germ line therapy, where the greatest moral 
issues reside. There exists a significant difference between 
an open process — in this situation one characterized by 
sparse public attendance of meetings held exclusively in 
Washington, D.C., and the publication of a proposal in the 
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