DAY 1 - CALL TO ORDER – 1:20 P.M.
WELCOME AND OVERVIEW OF AGENDA - Dr. Harold T. Shapiro, Commission Chair
DR. SHAPIRO: First let me extend a welcome to all my fellow Commissioners and to those members of the public who are here today, and also to those speakers who have been invited. As far as I know, only Jim Childress and Steve Holtzman are not scheduled to be here this afternoon. They’ll both be with us tomorrow. I think Diane (Scott-Jones) should be here shortly. I believe she’s scheduled to be here this afternoon—that’s our impression. She’s not here right now but she’ll be here momentarily. I saw her just a few moments ago.
Our meeting will run the rest of this afternoon and all day long tomorrow. And there really are, as you can tell from your agenda, three parts to the meeting. One will be a discussion of particular international issues; then there will be a discussion of the report on human biological materials, which will take a lot of our time both today and tomorrow; and then there will be a discussion of the report on disorders affecting the decision-making capacity. That will not come until tomorrow afternoon. So I hope as many Commissioners as possible will stay through tomorrow afternoon because that report is getting ready to be put out in some interim draft form, and I’m very, very anxious to have everyone’s input on that. And you can see the latest draft at our next meeting.
As I said, we have a lot of our time, the bulk of our time perhaps, devoted to the human biological materials because there’s lots of work still to be done on that issue and I’m anxious to move that report along. I want to thank both Tom and Jim for accommodating their mutual schedules to enable this agenda to be set forward the way it is.
Now, the first item on our agenda I’ll come back to in a few moments. First, I’m going to ask Eric to say a few words, and then we’ll go to the international research issues. And in that context, we have three people who will be addressing us this afternoon and then we’ll follow that with discussion. I’ll get back to more details of that in a moment. Let me now turn to Eric to see if he has any items to report on.
Eric?
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR’S REPORT - Dr. Eric M. Meslin, Executive Director, NBAC
DR. MESLIN: Thank you very much. The only thing I want to bring to everyone’s attention is that we are in the fortunate position of continuing our effort to add to our staff at NBAC, and, although she’s not here today, Debra McCurry has joined the NBAC staff to take on the responsibilities for our infomatics and resource capabilities. Debra had a similar position at the Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses, and we’re delighted to have her.
I should also let the Commissioners know, as well as the public, that the staff has undertaken a concerted effort to completely understand its responsibilities with respect to the national archives. Our filing capabilities, as well as our resource capabilities, are being brought up to speed. So I’m delighted to inform the Commission that our continuing efforts to increase the quality and the quantity of our staff is proceeding apace and hopefully we’ll have more announcements at future meetings. That’s all for now.