Statement by Philip Handler President, National Academy of Sciences Mr. Chairman, my colleagues and I are pleased to appear before you today to assist in your review of the report entitled Toward Healthful Diets, recently released by the National Research Council. Indeed, we are particularly pleased because some of the national press has diverted attention from the substance of that report by easy but unfair charges of personal conflict among its authoring committee--to the great disservice of their readership and to the considerable pain of some distinguished citizens generously engaged in public service. Since "healthful diets" are, patently, a matter of universal concern, we welcome your objective evaluation of our report. With me today are two members of our Food and Nutrition Board: its Chairman, Dr. Alfred E. Harper of the University of Wisconsin and Dr. Robert E. Olson of St. Louis University. Also accompanying me is Dr. Edward H. Ahrens, Jr., of the Rockefeller University, here as a representative member of the Assembly of Life Sciences, the component of the National Research Council of which the Board is a constituent part. For the record, our biographies are attached to my statement. The credentials and the contributions of these distinguished scientists to the national welfare, there displayed, speak for themselves. To preface my colleagues' remarks, I should like briefly to describe the National Research Council, the procedures by which members of committees and boards of the National Research Council are selected, and the processes we employ to assure objectivity in study reports issued by the NRC. The National Academy of Sciences is a private body created by Act of Congress signed by President Lincoln in 1863. In 1917, by Executive Order, President Wilson requested the Academy to perpetuate the National Research Council (NRC), which had been brought into being during World War I as an arrangment whereby the services of the nation's entire scientific and technical community, as well as the Academy membership, could be brought to bear on problems of concern to the government. Within that structure are more than 750 committees, panels, and boards, etc., on which there serve approximately 9000 different individuals from all 50 states and a few foreign nations, drawn from government, academia, industry, and diverse nonprofit institutions, and who receive no compensation for their services. [These figures are somewhat exaggerated in that one third of these are the highly technical, small committees of our Transportation Research Board alone.] Governance of the NRC is vested in a Governing Board drawn from the elected Councils of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and our Institute of Medicine. As President of the Academy, I am also Chairman of the National Research Council and its Chief Executive Officer, responsible, inter alia, for all appointments to membership on these many committees. Approximately 2500 such appointments are made annually, a process managed and monitored by a specific office within our Executive Office. Figure 1 shows the organizational arrangement of the National Research Council and the position of the Food and Nutrition Board in that arrangement. Only a sampling of other committees is shown. Members of committees of the National Research Council are selected and appointed by a process designed to assemble individuals of the highest professional competence, such that each committee is a balanced group appropriately constituted to consider the subject area under study. Suggestions for such appointments may be received from diverse sources; recommendations are then forwarded to my office by the Chairman of the responsible Assembly or Commission, in this case the Assembly of Life Sciences. As a condition of appointment, each committee member is required to complete our form on "Potential Sources of Bias" listing relevant organizational connections, sources of income and of research support, as well as indicating any public position taken on the specific issue before the committee. A copy of this form is attached. Completed forms are reviewed by the staff of the appointing unit of the NRC and in my office. When dealing with controversial matters in the public eye, it is extremely difficult to constitute a committee consisting entirely of competent individuals whose records are absolutely free from any real or apparent potential source of bias. This can be offset, in part, by attempting a balance of such constrained viewpoints. However, the problem with respect to bias is not so much that it may exist but that it may be concealed. been made to all other members of a given committee, it seems highly likely that any important conclusion or recommendation that derives from the bias of one or a few members--rather than flowing from the committee's data and findings--will readily be detected and rejected by fellow members of the committee. Accordingly, at its first meeting, each committee is asked to disclose the contents of their individual bias forms and discuss the circumstances of each individual member; this procedure is repeated annually, thereafter. To assure the scientific and expository standards of our studies, an independent report review procedure normally subjects all reports to critical scrutiny by scientifically sophisticated individuals other than the authors. Report reviewers consider whether a report's conclusions derive from an adequate data base, whether there is evidence of some built-in systematic bias, whether the report appears to be complete, fair and responsive to the charge given the committee, and whether the presentation is clear and concise. A copy of instructions to reviewers is attached. In the present instance, it may appear that our procedures did not quite fully accomplish their purpose, primarily because of an unrecognized deficiency in our process of committee appointment. Let me explain. The Food and Nutrition Board was established at the time of our entry into World War II, in 1941, to assist the nation to take stock of the extent, nature and causes of malnutrition, to appraise the nation's food supply, and to make recommendations for any desirable corrective programs. Ever since, the Board has brought together individuals from all professional disciplines associated with nutrition, not only from the academic community but also from government, industry and independent research institutions. Financial support has been provided from a variety of sources, including government, foundations, and industry. This was done deliberately to assure the Board's independence of any single government agency or industry. The FNB has been a great success, if for no reason other than its periodically revised reports on Recommended Dietary Allowances, the veritable bible of the fundamentals of nutrition. At a regularly scheduled meeting of the Food and Nutrition Board, I suggested the undertaking which culminated in the report now under consideration. I noted that the American population is being advised concerning optimal food consumption patterns by |