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of the Boston Group of a 2-year limitation in order to force that type of 
consideration, because if there is no forcing mechanism it may simply occur 
5 years later than it otherwise could. 
Now, there are conflicting views on the E,. coli . I am not capable of 
even addressing those. I think it important, as Judge Bazelon said, that 
when you make your decision on whether EK1 can be used for a short time at 
least, whether there should be a forcing mechanism to go to EK2, whether _E. 
coli should be used in the future, that all those reasons be laid out in 
enormous detail so that the people on both sides of the issue see your full 
explication of the basis and the rationale for your decision. 
I do feel also that the guidelines need much greater public partici- 
pation in the decision-making at two different levels. One is at the level 
that Dr. Melnick discussed, his proposed council. I am not sure that a 
second advisory committee at NIH on this issue is necessary. I think it 
could be melded with the basic technical advisory committee. 
The second is at the local level: I feel that the limitations on the 
local biohazard committee, which I believe is on page 44 of the guidelines, 
are inexplicable. We unfortunately did not have time to discuss that in any 
detail, and perhaps we could do that at a later time, but certainly I did 
not see the rationale for them. 
DR. FREDRICKSON: Excuse me, here. You mean you refer to the limita- 
tion of their decision-making to safeguards as opposed to scientific — 
MR. HUTT: Absolutely, and also, as opposed to the broader issue of 
public perception of safety and including a layman on the committee as is 
done, for example, with the informed-consent peer review mechanism who can 
also make a contribution albeit a nontechnical one. 
Going to some of the more legalistic or procedural aspects, certainly 
it is a legal fiction and perhaps also science fiction to refer to these as 
guidelines. Any document which is going to be used to determine whether a 
scientist can get Federal funding for a specific research project is not a 
guideline. It is a rule; it is a regulation; it might as well be a statute. 
If it is psychologically useful for the scientific world to believe 
these are guidelines, why, I have no objection to calling them that as long 
as no one takes it very seriously. 
Now, I personally would go along very, very strongly with what Judge 
Bazelon said about the need for public procedures to the extent of putting 
these in the Federal Register . I do not believe that the public rights — 
whether they are the rights of scientists or the rights of citizens or who- 
ever, and I don't make a distinction between scientists and citizens, but 
members of the public generally — should be affected by guidelines drawn 
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