254 
AFTERNOON SESSION 2:10 p.m. 
DR. FREDRICKSON: The Committee will reconvene. As we adjourned last, 
I promised Ms. Pamela Lippe of the Friends of the Earth Washington Office 
two minutes to make some questions or statements she had. 
MS. LIPPE: First of all, Ms. Simring prepared an answer to the question 
that Mr. Hutt asked yesterday in regard to examples of failure to comment in 
the Environmental Impact Statement. We would like that introduced into the 
record, and it is available in room 8. 
I want to thank you for allowing me a chance to testify. I had not ini- 
tially requested it, but I think there are two important points that have not 
been discussed explicitly in the roles and responsibilities section. First 
of all, the Guidelines, which this Committee is working very hard to revise, 
are going to be meaningless unless they are followed. Since there are no 
national inspectors, I think it is essential that the biohazard committees 
be mandated to do periodic inspections of the laboratories. From what I 
have been able to tell in talking to people, that is not really happening. 
Since the biohazard committees are there, and since there are a number of 
legislative proposals being considered in the Congress now which may even- 
tually rest some of that responsibility with the biohazard committees, I 
think it would be important for them to begin to develop their expertise, as 
well as it seems as though whatever regulatory scheme is finally developed, 
the biohazard committee should have some important role to play in it. 
Secondly, I think this is the one thing that Dr. Watson and I do agree 
on. He did mention that there are really very few facts on which people can 
make their decisions about allowing this research to proceed or lowering the 
containment. We feel that it is the responsibility of the NIH to develop an 
adequate risk-assessment program. Now, that does not mean an experiment 
here or there, and it does also not mean risk assessment in terms of things 
like the polyoma experiment only. We think that those experiments must be 
done, but that there is an essential development of a data base that we would 
like to see before or as an ongoing program at NIH; and this sort of gets 
into the question of setting priorities, and I think that is a little bit 
beyond the purview of this Committee. But we feel that risk assessment must 
be a priority, and we would like to see language introduced into the Guide- 
lines indicating that the NIH acknowledges this responsibility and will give 
it the priority it deserves. 
So, in ending, I would like to say if the public is to have confidence 
in any self-policing scheme, it is important that there is credible over- 
sight. And secondly, if the public is to have any confidence in the decision 
to proceed, we must have the experimental data to inform our opinions as well 
as yours. 
DR. FREDRICKSON: Thank you, Ms. Lippe. Is there a question or a comment? 
If not, then thank you very much. 
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