279 
evidence, then I have a great deal of concern about the composition of a 
committee which is basically composed of people who are scientists, and 
only two public members as I read your membership list. I am concerned 
that that committee, at the time it undertook to do revisions, based at 
least on what I have heard in the last two days, did not have public hear- 
ings at that time, before these revisions were concrete. Really, what has 
been done in the last two days I would have thought should have been done 
at that level rather than at this level, when there could have been a great 
deal more deliberation about what the revisions should be. 
I am concerned because I was concerned about the discussion last night 
with respect to viruses. I am obviously incapable of making a scientific 
judgment, but I think that I would have felt — I am upset to think that the 
process that was involved in making the decisions about viruses last night 
might not have been a good one. I don't care whether the Europeans are ahead 
of us or behind us. What I do care about is a careful assessment that carries 
with it some credibility to the public about whether this country should move 
into an area or relax certain restrictions. And I think I would have been 
confident if you had proposed a relaxation of restrictions if I had been more 
confident about the process in which that was considered. 
I think that it may be that you don't want that committee to have that 
role, and if that is so, Lhen I would propose that perhaps you think of some 
other committee or some other structure. You may want a committee just to 
do scientific assessment. It seems to me you may want a committee that would 
take into account broader issues. This committee got involved in a lot of 
things, including what biohazards committees should look like, whether you 
should have a safety officer, and to a degree that it got into, it seems to 
me, roles and responsibilities, then I would have wanted a broader-based 
committee than the one I see represented, at least in the list I have been 
given. 
I would also say that I don't see this Committee, the Director's 
Advisory Committee, as substituting somehow for what I have been asking for 
and what I would like to see. This seems to me to be a two-day meeting in 
which we are asked to make assessments based upon reading almost 900 pages 
of documents which I valiantly tried to do, and to try to understand a lot 
of testimony that I, for one, do not feel particularly qualified to com- 
pletely evaluate. It seems to me in addition, we don't really deliberate 
what we have heard; we are giving you our impressions of what we have heard, 
which seems to me to be appropriate for a Director's Advisory Committee, to 
give you individual impressions, but I would have hoped for some area where 
there would have been deliberations in public by a group that would have 
included more public members. 
Obviously I am influenced by my role in the National Commission, which 
I think has been quite successful in inspiring confidence, not so much for 
what it says, always, but for the fact that it has been in the open, and for 
the composition of that Commission. 
[ 483 ] 
