2 
The rush to curtail NIH's current practice of evaluating proposals appears 
to be unnecessary. I would prefer to see a smooth continuum in the transfer of 
responsibility from the NIH-RAC to the new interagency oversight committee. The 
committee should be given sufficient time to develop guidelines for review of 
proposals. 
Recommendation six is apparently intended to increase an awareness of 
environmental sciences in committee decisions but I suspect that in practice 
such individuals would feel compromised to be "responsible" for overseeing 
environmental decisions. Indeed it is the responsibility of every current 
member to be cognizant of potential environmental or ecological problems and to 
enlist the aid of qualified consultants where information is needed. 
Recommendation seven to "review the activities of USDA in overseeing 
biotechnology" is -unnecessary . The term biotechnology is much too broad here. 
Clearly the USDA is meant to "oversee" certain aspects of agricultural biotech- 
nology and should continue to do so. The continued deliberate release of 
"genetically engineered" crop varieties is a necessity in modern agriculture in 
the U.S.A. 
Finally, I wish to make a comment concerning the decision of the director 
of the grants program of the institute of environmental health sciences (NIH- 
EHS) to discontinue institute support for assessing the safety of releasing 
microorganisms into the environment (specifically viruses used as biological 
pesticides) . NIH should fund projects concerning the relative safety $vith regard 
to human health) of biologicals (particularly microbes) released into the environ- 
ment and I believe that such projects should be funded through NIH-EHS when 
appropriate. The current policy of NIH-EHS would imply that NIH has little 
concern or little interest in safety considerations of environmentally released 
organisms. I am sure this is not representative of NIH policy in general and I 
would hope that NIH-EHS re-evaluate its interest in the effects of releasing 
biologicals in the environment. 
Lois K. Miller 
Professor of Biochemistry 
LKM/cb 
[ 681 ] 
