US plan to scrap DNA panel splits genetic researchers

摘要

US gene-therapy researchers and others appear to be split over a proposal to eliminate the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee (RAC) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), set up in the mid-1970s in response to public fears of genetic engineering. In a notice published in the Federal Register last week, the NIH describes as "timely and appropriate" a plan made public in May by Harold Varmus, the director of NIH, to disband the 25-member panel of scientists, ethicists and others, now responsible for approving novel gene-therapy protocols, and to transfer this task to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).