question of compensation for registration data. The House bill would protect proprietary information for a five-year period following registration of the data, and allowfivemore years' compensation to the originator of data if the information is used by another manufacturer as part of an application for a pesticide registration. If the firms are unable to agree on fair compensation for the test data, then the dispute would be submitted to binding arbitration under both House and Senate versions. In the Senate bill, however, data originators would receive compensation for seven years after the information is first submitted to EPA. In either case, health and safety information would not be considered trade secrets and thus open to public inspection—a feature environmental groups have long sought. A spokesman for the National Agricultural Chemicals Association, however, warns that this could result in "a danger that everybody will sit back and wait for somebody else to do it [health and safety research]." The House bill is expected to go to the floor sometime in the next two weeks where passage is a near certainty. It will then go to conference to iron out differences with the Senate version. D
Daddario remains closemouthed on OTA The stage was set on Capitol Hill last week for Emilio Q. Daddario, originator and first director of the Office of Technology Assessment, to give his former colleagues in the House a perceptive account of the roots of the problems besetting the troubled agency. Instead, he gave them a historical lecture on technology assessment, a recounting of his role in giving birth to the concept, and avoided direct answers to the questions put to him. His unwillingness as its former director to be specific itf pinpointing OTA's problems and in recommending steps to improve its image and functions brought forth one comment that his performance was "statesmanlike." But a more seasoned observer of technology assessment and its specialized brand of politics said this, shaking his head: "Daddario had the chance to keep OTA from going down the drain. But he didn't raise a finger to save it." The setting was the House Subcommittee on Science, Research & Technology, whose chairman is Rep. Ray Thornton (D.-Ala.). Thornton is conducting extended oversight 8
C&ENOct. 3, 1977
the benefit of the entire society. What this subcommittee intends to do is examine the operating experiences [of OTA]." Continuing, he said that the same questions he asked years ago as a member of the subcommittee still need to be asked. And he said that over the course of time the OTA board would learn to operate as a board. In other words, a nonanswer. Committee sources say he will be asked to come back in the spring. Friends of Daddario are hoping he will somehow rise to the occasion at Daddario: chose not to be candid his next opportunity and say what has long been on his mind about the hearings on OTA that began early in threats to a concept he himself fa• August and will extend into tKe thered. spring. Critics say that the agency has lacked a guiding theme since its be- Companies give grants ginnings. It has been faulted for being overstaffed, hiring mediocre profes- for cancer research sionals, taking too long to do studies, making scant impact on the legisla- Several companies made large contive process, backing away from tributions to nonprofit scientific retackling truly controversial issues, search institutions last week. Brissidestepping its responsibility to be tol-Myers announced grants totaling an "early warning system" on $2.5 million to five universities to emerging technological problems, and support cancer research. These grants even failing to do studies that merit are the largest unrestricted contrithe definition, technology assess- butions made by a corporation to ment. support cancer research, the company Daddario addressed none of these says. And Richardson-Merrell doissues. He did say that he believed all nated its Swiftwater, Pa., vaccine along that OTA would take 10 years production and research facilities to to evolve into a body that Congress Salk Institute for Biological Studies. could understand and learn to use Salk Institute intends to set up a well. But he didn't acknowledge cur- government services division at the rent threats to its continued existence Swiftwater site that will investigate or the fact that its present organiza- more applied problems in medical tional setup as, effectively, a joint research under government concommittee of Congress cut into his tract. autonomy and effectiveness as its The Bristol-Myers grants will go to director. It is common knowledge that Yale, Stanford, Johns Hopkins, the his authority—to the extent he University of Chicago, and Baylor wished to exercise it—was under al- college of medicine. As Bristol-Myers most constant erosion by segments of chairman Richard L. Gelb explains, OTA's advisory council and some "Our objective is to provide these members of Sen. Edward M. Kenne- schools with funds on a no-stringsdy's staff. attached basis to encourage innovaBut, observers say, Daddario chose tion in cancer research, and to permit not to fight back. And at last week's them to explore promising leads in hearings, he chose not to be candid. depth." The grants will support basic One example of an exchange pretty study of biomedical and genetic facmuch characterizes the tpne of the tors involved in the development of hearing. Full committee chairman cancer, the effects of anticancer Olin Teague (D.-Tex.), last session's drugs, the development of new antichairman of the OTA board, asked cancer drugs, and clinical programs. Daddario what advice, in view of Richardson-Merrell's donation to OTA's well-publicized problems, he Salk Institute includes 156 acres, 40 would give to the next director. buildings, and equipment for vaccine (Teague himself has expressed doubts production and research at Swiftover whether OTA should continue to water. Salk Institute does not plan to exist.) Daddario's partial answer: become a vaccine producer. Rather it "One of the characteristics of this hopes to sell the vaccine production subcommittee has been to always facilities at the site to the Canadian operate on a nonpartisan basis. It has vaccine producer Connaught Laboapproached these scientific and ratories, which will continue protechnological matters in such a way so duction of yellow fever vaccine and that the whole committee has been others that Richardson-Merrell has able to deal with them as a whole for been producing there. •
