Senator HARRIS. You made, in answer to my question, statements which indicated that long-range planning capabilities exist within the NIH. The Wooldridge report, as I understand it, criticized NIH for being somewhat deficient in long-range planning capabilities. I understand from your answer that you feel improvement has been made, and in that connection, you do agree that the criticism was, at least in part, justified?

Dr. SHANNON. I do, indeed, but could I rephrase it?

Senator HARRIS. Yes.

Dr. SHANNON. I talked with Dean Wooldridge at great length. I think that the concern of his committee was less critical of our lack of planning than that our planning effort had no visibility, no clear focus of responsibility, that the plans evolved were not the obvious and apparent responsibility of single individuals in the organization. It was his feeling that these fields are so important that this focus of responsibility: (1) should be shared with the scientific community in general; (2) that it should be highly visible; and (3) that the operations of such an advisory function should be basically in the public domain. This indeed we have done through the establishment of the committee that Dean Wooldridge recommended. He called it by a slightly different name, but it has precisely the functions that Wooldridge envisions. This advisory committee to the Director has been operational now since last fall.

If I could say something off the record, sir.

Senator HARRIS. Yes, sir.

(Discussion off the record.)

Dr. SHANNON. This committee has been established and is in operation, sir.

Senator HARRIS. What are the backgrounds of the members of the advisory committee that you alluded to in your testimony? What sort of activities have they undertaken up to now?

Dr. SHANNON. Well, one should view this committee as the beginning of a somewhat larger committee after there has been a preliminary assessment of how this group can function. But at the present time it is drawn from five general areas of activity. In the physical sciences and engineering, there is Caryl Haskins, president of Carnegie Institution, Washington; and there is Jerry Wiesner, who is provost at MIT.

In the behavorial sciences, there are Dr. Douglas Bond, professor of psychiatry at Western Reserve and chief of psychiatry at the University Hospital in Cleveland; Dr. Franklin Edwards, professor of sociology at Howard; and Dr. Henry Riecken, at the present time vice president of the Social Science Research Council.

For the basic biomedical sciences, there are Dr. Philip Cohen, professor and chairman of the department of physiological chemistry at the University of Wisconsin: Dr. William McElroy, chairman of the department of biology at Johns Hopkins; and Dr. Wendel Stanley, director of the virus laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley.

In the fields of medical and dental science and education there is Dr. Maurice Hickey, dean of the School of Dentistry, University of Washington; Dr. Irving London, professor and chairman of the Department of Medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Yeshiva

University; and Dr. Barnes Woodhall, vice provost of Duke University Medical Center.

In the fields of industrial research and development management, there is V. G. Nielsen, who is secretary and trustee of the Aerospace Corp.

Now, in this initial go-around, we wanted to have very thoughtful people who would concern themselves with how this committee could operate and what talents it needed and how it would address itself to the staff and what additional members it would require. These were the important problems and out of this would come not a large expansion of the committee but the addition of some three or four members in those areas in which the committee itself advised us or we determined would really be helpful. We are undertaking several jobs now and we hope that on the basis of these, any deficiencies will become corrected.

Senator HARRIS. Would you distinguish between the various roles of the Government, the universities, and private industry in the biomedical development efforts? You said, I believe, that the drug industry in the United States is responsible for 25 percent of the research expenditures?

Dr. SHANNON. Yes.

Senator HARRIS. I might ask in that connection if you know how that compares with such expenditures in other countries, and how these fit together?

Dr. SHANNON. Well, for instance, with respect to Government, the universities, the academic world, and industry, I would say that for areas in which a capable, interested, cooperative industry exists, a very good principle to follow would be for the Federal Government to encourage industry to undertake actual developmental activities in keeping with the usual operations of our economic system. I believe that where biomedical application or some aspect of development, either in kind or in size or in timing or in complexity, can be judged to be beyond the private capabilities, then the Federal Government has a meaningful role to play. I would say that academic institutions have a role similar to the more fundamental aspects of the role that NIH, in its direct operation, has itself. That is, the performance of a mix of fundamental and applied research and, indeed, some developmental research of direct relevance to the solution of disease problems and necessary to maintain a broad interface between research and its application in service situations. I think this is a peculiarly distinctive role that must be played by the university and by the Federal Government in its support of universities.

I think the larger scale development that is beyond the capacity of the individual and industrial group at times can be done through the association of elements of industry, although this is made difficult by some of our antitrust laws. But when these large-scale developments are impractical, and after a study of on-going capability and activity indicates these are inadequate to solve a problem, and when the science base is there, then I think that the Federal Government, without fear, should boldly enter the field and support the activity fully.

Now, in relation to the derivative question of the expenditures in this country as opposed to other countries, I think we are very fortunate in this country that we have a very far-sighted industrial activity

and the proportion of the gross sales that go into the research process is very substantial in this country as contrasted to other countries; and as I read the newspapers, this is one of reasons for the emergence of the United States as a leader in this field. Indeed, the pharmaceutical industry is providing the capital for exploration of these fields in a number of northern European countries to the point that they are concerned about this loss of technological leadership within their own countries. This has led, in the United Kingdom to the establishment of a board of inquiry on a very high level to determine what their attitudes should be to the support of research and development within their own industry and whether it would not be wise as a national policy to provide tax incentives to industry to develop a more independent research and development activity of their own and not permit the dominant U.S. interests to control the scene.

I think we are very fortunate to have a very vigorous enterprise here. I think we have a responsibility to see that this independent private activity is supported, sir.

Senator HARRIS. We have considered the possibility that the subcommittee might sponsor some hearings, a seminar or a conference on an increased role for the private sector. We are not talking about drugs alone but instrumentation and other aspects as well. What might the Federal Government do to encourage an increased role for the private sector? Do you have any suggestions along that line or any comment on the need of such a seminar or conference?

Dr. SHANNON. Senator Harris, I would rather not make a direct reply. What I would like to do is go back and read the hearings that were held by Senator McClellan about 2 years ago that related to problems of patent protection in areas of joint concern to the Federal Government and industry. I cannot recall right now the extent to which they explored it in definitive fashion. I think when you talk about problems of the Federal Government encouraging industry, you have a rather restrictive patent policy on the part of the Federal Government. I would prefer not to comment on that without exploring this issue. I think that it would not be a profitable undertaking, but I would like to go back and reread the record of those hearings, and I would be very glad to give your staff our advice on the matter.

Senator HARRIS. Good. Thank you.

Lastly, Dr. Shannon, Dr. Glaser talked about, and I made some statements about the possibility that various agencies of the Federal Government (I would not restrict it just to the biosciences) which are involved in research contracts or grants might at the beginning of each year make some statement about their interests and areas of basic knowledge and development in which they might be particularly interested and would invite proposals. Does NIH do that, or what general comments might you have to make about that suggestion?

Dr. SHANNON. As a generality we do, and we do not; but we have this past year. At the request of the President we were asked to outline our total program and indicate to him where opportunities for productive enterprise exist. Basically, this is a very difficult thing to do, to pull the diverse elements of a program as broad as ours into a small package. But a beginning has been made, the document has been completed, has gone forward to the President.

Now, it has basically been our experience both in getting this document together, and from the consideration of certain disease-oriented advisory groups that contain both in-house and external advisers, that this was a very good takeoff point for a somewhat different approach to program analysis than has been applied to our activities in the past. I would not propose that this activity be done annually, but in discussing this with the institutes, more particularly in relation to their getting better and sounder and broader advice from their council structure, it seems likely that having created this report to the President now, each Institute will pick out two or three important areas each year for a very definitive review and program attention.

I do not think that the biomedical sciences are moving so rapidly that this has to be an annual endeavor. I do indeed think, though, that there should be a logical, well-structured fashion which permits both the scientists themselves and those who may wish to enter an area of science to get authoritative information on what is going on.

I might say that in response to your comment about the Vice President, when he sat in your chair, sir, we in the biomedical sciences have indeed had a very effective means for information exchange that does not deal with past results, but rather with the ongoing enterprise. This was set up first as an activity of the National Institutes of Health and transferred to the National Research Council, and now has a final home in the Smithsonian Institution. It is called the Science Information Exchange.

Now, in the biomedical field, basically every activity, whether inhouse or in the grant program of each of the Federal agencies, and each of the major supporters of research-whether it be a voluntary agency or a foundation-these activities are listed in a recapturable fashion at this Science Information Exchange.

I believe that this is the only area of science which is covered in this fashion. I point out, on the output side now, that the National Library of Medicine is converting what formerly was a clinically-oriented information system, in what was then the Library of the Surgeon General of the Army, into a very broad system of scientific information. It is an output system that is a progressively broadening, computerbased operation that now is in a position to search the bulk of the biomedical literature. I talked with Dr. Cummings and, Senator Harris, if you want to make inquiry into this, I would strongly urge that Dr. Cummings be invited to testify and explain this apparatus.

Senator HARRIS. I was thinking about something that would even be broader than the medical library. For example, in the development of the artificial heart, as you know, one of the problems was to find some substance that could line the artificial heart and would be acceptable to human blood and not cause clotting, which eventually could result in the death of the patient. That problem was solved by the process of trial and error, and almost by accident, by a high school boy, I believe, who eventually found the substance.

Now, it seems to me that if there were some sort of place where these things could filter down or cut across the lines or disciplines, you might invite and induce proposals which otherwise would not come about.