Entire Transcript in Adobe Acrobat Format - National Reference ...

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the richness of staff which comes from other more direct
richnesses.
There is some question about whether we have to
have one kind of report. Whether, in fact, the reports
that we now circulate among ourselves in draft form -- is
there a reason for circulating those reports publicly? I
think they are part of the public record, aren't they, so
that, in fact, anybody who wants to comment on them could
do that by testifying in front of us but there might be
reason for having public comment on drafts even that we
circulate outside and that would enable people who cannot
come to our meetings to make comments and allow us to be
enriched by those comments.
We also might -- and this is an issue that
allows us to decide, well, what do we actually do. We have
a policy assumption. There is no question about that. We
are to come up with public policy but by the way we are
constituted and by our natural bents we also have an
academic function. Does one kind of report meet both those
needs the best? Are there things that we might do strictly
as a policy recommendation report and other things where we
want greater depth and background and greater academic
depth because we know we are talking to the bioethics and
scientific community in a different voice than we might do