Volume 3

Interagency coordination in drug research and regulation : hearings before the Subcommittee on Reorganization and International Organizations of the Committee on Government Operations, United States Senate, Eighty-eighth Congress, first session. Agency coordination study, pursuant to S. Res. 27, 88th Cong. Review of cooperation on drug policies among Food and Drug Administration, National Institutes of Health, Veterans' Administration, and other agencies. Mar. 20-June 26, 1963.

United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Government Operations

Date:: 1963

Credit: Interagency coordination in drug research and regulation : hearings before the Subcommittee on Reorganization and International Organizations of the Committee on Government Operations, United States Senate, Eighty-eighth Congress, first session. Agency coordination study, pursuant to S. Res. 27, 88th Cong. Review of cooperation on drug policies among Food and Drug Administration, National Institutes of Health, Veterans' Administration, and other agencies. Mar. 20-June 26, 1963. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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REPORT OF PANEL I SCIENTIST-TO-SCIENTIST COMMUNICATION * * * 3% * * * International Exchange of Information There is a need for more effective communication of the results of research between foreign and American scientists. Existing programs should be evaluated and the effective ones broadened and strengthened. New means to effect this exchange should be considered. The means of accomplishing this exchange include: 1. Selected translations, converting and republishing significant research results, would be made available to scienists through cooperative channels involy- ing government support and cooperative planning of research groups. 2. Abstracting, indexing, and the preparation of critical reviews would be vigorously supported in coordination with other national and international agencies. 3. Information would be obtained and kept up-to-date on international health- related programs and research, necessary staff, continuing functions and per- manent records, to be established in this connection. 4. Information relating to the organization and conduct of medical research would be placed in the hands of medical scientists for their better understanding and appraisal of international contributions to their fields of research. Specialized Information Services The panel recognizes a need for specialized information services but is re- luctant to support hasty adoption of a large-scale center operation in the bio- medical field. The panel is convinced that biomedical scientists need an information “com- modity,”’ or service, that is not available or generally effective in the scientific community at the present time. This service should satisfy the scientist’s urgent need for specific information that is pertinent to his current research activity and is precisely selected from the large body of recorded knowledge. His need for such selected information will be satisfied only as it is supplied in a comprehensive way, and as he is kept up-to-date on new information in the circumscribed field of his particular research project. Precise, comprehensive, and up-to-date information pertinent to the current research activities of individual scientists is not readily available to the scientific community-at-large from existing sources. It may well be supplied by a new type of information service. Some isolated services of this genera] nature are known to be operating at various levels of sophistication and effectiveness for the benefit of relatively few scientists in biomedical research. These should serve to some degree as pattern prototypes or guides in developing special serv- ices for the benefit of all biomedical scientists. Development of such a service should be initially confined to a fairly narrow segment of biomedical science for which the information required for productive research can be processed for the above purposes within a reasonable trial period, reilecting areas of paramount interest to the Public Health Service. Continual evaluation and appropriate modification of this demonstration project can lead to the orderly and economical extension of such a service to other areas of interest. Limitations of scientific manpower and resources, as well as concern for proprietary interest, militate against (the provision of) services of this kind by most nongovernmental agencies. The panel, therefore, recommends that the Public Health Service undertake the implementation of such a pilot demonstration on the new information services outlined above. * * % % %* % * Three proposals as outlined in the preconference working document came under careful scrutiny by the panel: Information clearinghouses, No. 8; Drug Information Management System, No. 9; and A Coordinated Network for

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