Institutional Biosafety Committees and the Inadequacies of Risk Regulation

Abstract

It is now clear that is destined to play a major role in evolution of U.S. capitalism. With relative decline of types of mechanical-industrial production that had long been a mainstay of U.S. economy, with too many people questioning whether better living really comes through new chemistry of plastics and food additives, and with electronics subject to heavy competition from abroad, biological activities have become an area of choice for investment of American capital.' Amazing scientific developments, coupled with new liaisons between once-reclusive laboratory scientists and press agents and financial investment firms, have led to front page news stories and a host of novel public policy problems. In no area is this change more evident than in research on recombinant DNA. As a former Director of National Science Foundation-escaping from usual blandness of bureaucratic language-has put it, the advances we are witnessing in molecular biology are staggering. ... suffice it to say recombinant DNA research] is putting molecular biology on 'Big Board.' ,,2 Recombinant DNA research has primarily been done in university laboratories, although a small but significant portion of research has been conducted in private firms. This research can have either or both of two objectives: to study cellular processes and/or to make a product useful to humanity and profitable to its producers. Recombinant DNA activity is therefore both a science and a technology. Many of researchers have been socialized into professional roles as academic laboratory scientists only to find themselves thrust