33 
Guidelines committee sees clearly its role as one of safety and not also 
one of promotion of research. 
I would like to make a personal comment why I think wider public repre- 
sentation on the Committee would be useful. I say that I am particularly 
grateful to be able to speak here. The first time I had such an opportunity 
was at the Falmouth Conference last June, where I had to insist, and there 
I was told that the Falmouth Conference was not making policy or revising 
the NIH Guidelines. It is clear that while they weren't revising them 
directly, they were setting the precedents for how the safety of recombinant 
DNA research should be considered. I feel that wider public representation 
was omitted during all of that process. This is important to include in 
the future. 
Those are all the comments I have. Thank you. 
DR. FREDRICKSON: Thank you, Mr. Thacher. Why don't you just remain 
there a moment. 
I do want to note for the record that the meetings of the Recombinant 
Advisory Committee to which you had reference are always open public meetings, 
and notice of them is given in the Federal Register , just to clarify that 
point . 
MR. THACHER: My main consideration is who is on that committee, so 
that a scientist such as myself, who feels their opinions are not as diverse 
as biologists generally, knows that someone who perhaps shares my view about 
the questions of safety is scrutinizing the data first-hand. 
DR. FREDRICKSON: Dr. Ahmed, I think you had a comment or a question. 
DR. AHMED: Let me ask a question and see how you react to the appro- 
priateness of this. 
DR. FREDRICKSON: Okay. 
DR. AHMED: Several speakers have already raised the question about 
public participation in decision-making in the Guidelines, and then Mr. 
Hutt raised the question of risk-assessment and how one arrives at that. I 
raise it now because it seems to me that sooner or later we have to address 
this question about peer review of scientific information, particularly 
non-published kinds of information that sort of circulates within the 
scientific community, but haven't actually gone through the rigorous pro- 
cess of publication, as Dr. Sinsheimer mentioned a while ago. Anyone 
who has worked in the scientific community knows that there are a lot of 
preprints that float around, and there is a lot of exchange of information 
at conferences and other things. But as far as developing such Guidelines 
are concerned, on the NIH level, you have to develop some mechanism by 
which the public out there can have access to information in the early 
stages . 
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