RAC balks at regulatory reforms. (Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee)

The proposed streamlining of U.S. federal review of proposals for gene therapy research - a summer 1994 agreement that would have given approval authority over such undertakings exclusively to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) - appears to have broken down.

Such reviews have traditionally been conducted by both the FDA and the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee (RAC), and several members of the RAC have balked at approving the agreement, contending that the committee's public reviews of proposed research should continue.

Further, the Foundation on Economic Trends (FET), Washington, D.C., threatened to sue if …