Issues in the federal regulation of biotechnology : from research to release : report / prepared by the Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight, transmitted to the Committee on Science and Technology, House of Representatives, Ninety-ninth Congress, second session.

  • United States. Congress. House. Committee on Science and Technology. Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight
Date:
1986
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Issues in the federal regulation of biotechnology : from research to release : report / prepared by the Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight, transmitted to the Committee on Science and Technology, House of Representatives, Ninety-ninth Congress, second session. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    CHAPTER FIVE: CONGRESSIONAL CONCERNS Since the advent of biotechnology, Congress has published exten- sive reports on the issues surrounding genetic engineering. This chapter provides a brief overview of the most significant House of Representative reports of the past 16 years, legislation that has been introduced in the 99th Congress, and reports by the General Accounting Office. A. GENETIC ENGINEERING—EVOLUTION OF A TECHNOLOGICAL ISSUE (Supplemental Report I), (1974).55 This report, which pre-dates the convening of the Asilomar Con- ference,*°* concluded that, “i]t is no longer feasible to talk in terms of developments in the far future when considering the topic of ge- netic engineering. . . it now appears to be necessary to prepare for the availability of many of these techniques and to determine whether additional public policies need to be adopted.” The report commended the science community for recommending deferral of potentially hazardous research pending evaluation of “the legal, moral and ethical aspects of these new developments in genetic en- gineering.” * * % * * * * B. GENETIC ENGINEERING, HUMAN GENETICS, AND CELL BIloLOGY— EVOLUTION OF TECHNOLOGICAL ISSUES—DNA RECOMBINANT MOLE- CULE RESEARCH (Supplemental Report II), (1976).57 This report concluded that the NIH Guidelines represented a compromise between those who would stop all recombinant DNA research until all of the pertinent public policy or safety questions were answered and those who would prefer to go unhindered in their research. It noted that although the NIH Guidelines provided a system of peer review starting at the level of the individual in- vestigator, there was really no central control over all recombinant DNA research. The report concluded that there was insufficient information available to predict whether there would be adverse environmental hazards from release of genetically-engineered organisms and that 55 Report prepared for the Subcommittee on Science, Research and Development of the Com- mittee on Science and Astronautics, U.S. House of Representatives, 98rd Congress, Second Ses- sion, by the Science Policy Research Division, Congressional Research Service, Library of Con- gress, Serial BB, December 1974. 56 The International Conference on Recombinant DNA Molecules held at the Asilomar Con- ference Center in Pacific Grove, CA, February 24-27, 1975. 57 Report prepared by the Congressional Research Service for the Subcommittee on Science, Research and Technology of the Committee on Science and Technology, U.S. House of Repre- sentatives, 94th Congress, Second Session, Serial KKK (December 1976).