Office Of Technology Assessment Research Articles

Designer Genes for Producing Drugs: Will They Wash?

Recombinant DNA technology is all vogue these days. It is subject of intense media and investor interest. It has lured tens of millions of dollars from industry to support academic research, spawned a seemingly endless succession of symposia examining every nuance of technology, and fostered development of a hundred recombinant DNA companies in a dozen countries. But those who are bullish on this new technology had best be prepared to be patient, at least for short term; most of prognostications made about this new area are almost surely overly optimistic. Even authoritative and useful report by Congress' Office of Technology Assessment, Impacts of Applied Genetics , recently hyperbolized that the immediate direct economic impact of using genetic manipulation in [pharmaceutical] industry, measured as sales, can be estimated in billions of dollars, with indirect impacts... reaching several times that value. This

OTA congressional fellowships

The Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) is seeking qualified candidates from academic, industrial, and governmental communities for its Congressional Fellowship Program for 1982–83. The program is similar to AGU's Congressional Fellowship Program (Eos, February 16, p. 164) in that it provides an opportunity for individuals who have demonstrated outstanding ability in management or research to gain a better understanding of the science and technology issues facing Congress and the way in which Congress establishes national policy related to these issues.The fellowships, open to men and women of all disciplines of science and technology and related policy or research activities, will emphasize interdisciplinary approaches to public policy concerns. Candidates must have completed research and training at the doctoral level or have equivalent experience, as determined by the OTA Selection Committee. Salaries will range from $25,000 to $37,000 for 1 year, based on the fellows' current salary, training, and experience.

The office of technology assessment and forecast industry concordance as a means of identifying industry technology origins

Abstract This paper examines the difficulties encountered when one attempts to link patents to data on such variables as R & D expenditures in the industries where the patents originated. A comparative experiment using U.S. OTAF industry assignments based upon patent class codes only and a ‘manual’ procedure using much richer information reveals a high rate of disagreement as to origin industries. Alternative means of obtaining better information on origin industries are considered.

The office of technology assessment and forecast industry concordance as a means of identifying industry technology origins

The office of technology assessment and forecast industry concordance as a means of identifying industry technology origins

OTA Predicts Growing Soviet Energy Trade

The Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) takes a commercial perspective when it recommends that the administration cooperate with Europe and the Soviet Union on the Siberian natural-gas pipeline because there is no evidence that a trade boycott could succeed, although it could slow progress. The US can take other initiatives, such as building stockpiles or installing dual-fuel boilers, to help Europe avoid energy dependence on the USSR. President Reagan has no coherent trade policy toward the USSR, partly because he fears rapid energy development and exports would provide the Soviets with capital to buy supplies and compensate for their own economic problems. The OTA concludes that the Soviets will manage without US technology, that both oil and natural gas production will increase slower than US intelligence estimates, and that gas production will increase at a pace with European interest in selling steel and finding non-OPEC energy sources. (DCK)

OTA: Shore up federal ocean programs

Although the federal ocean effort consists of about 90 programs, at a cost of $2.52 billion in fiscal 1980, there is no comprehensive plan or coordination for the development of new technologies to advance the programs, according to a report by an Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) panel. Federally supported technologies include ships, satellites for oceanography research, buoys, submersibles, and independent instrument systems. To shore up the development of ocean technology, Congressional initiatives may be necessary, concludes the Technology and Oceanography Assessment Advisory Panel.There is no consistency, the panel charged, among agencies in their plans for future program or capital expenditures. Furthermore, some agencies plan for possible future technology needs, while others do not plan for new expenditures until new items become vital. And, some program plans include substantial contingencies and related activities, while others do not.

Office of Technology Assessment. Impacts of Applied Genetics: Micro-organisms, Plants, and Animals. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1981. $8.00; GPO Stock Number 052-003-00805-0

Office of Technology Assessment. Impacts of Applied Genetics: Micro-organisms, Plants, and Animals. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1981. $8.00; GPO Stock Number 052-003-00805-0

Office of Technology Assessment. Formal Analysis, Policy Formulation, and End-Stage Renal Disease. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1980. $2.50; GPO Stock Number 052-003-00809-2

Office of Technology Assessment. Formal Analysis, Policy Formulation, and End-Stage Renal Disease. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1980. $2.50; GPO Stock Number 052-003-00809-2

Environmental cancer risks

In a long‐awaited report (‘Assessment of Technologies for Determining Cancer Risks From the Environment’), the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) has evaluated the role of environmental factors in cancer diseases. Environment is interpreted broadly as encompassing anything that interacts with humans, including the natural environment, food, radiation, the workplace, etc. Geologic factors range from geographic location to radiation and specific minerals. The report, however, is based on an inadequate data base in most instances, and its major recommendations are related to the establishment of a national cancer registry to record cancer statistics, as is done for many other diseases. Presently, hard statistics are lacking in the establishment of some association between the cause‐effect relationship of most environmental factors and most carcinogens. Of particular interest, but unfortunately based on unreliable data, are the effects of mineral substances such as ‘asbestos.’ USGS mineralogist Malcolm Ross will review asbestos and its effects on human health in the forthcoming Mineralogical Society of America's Short Course on the Amphiboles (Reviews in Mineralogy, 9, in press, 1981).

Reducing Casualties in Nuclear War

To the Editor.— A nuclear attack would certainly produce a disaster magnitudes greater than anything that has yet befallen this continent. Howard H. Hiatt, MD (1980;244:2314), has considered this possibility and has come to the conclusion that treatment programs would be virtually useless and that prevention of the possibility of nuclear war is the only solution. As desirable as prevention would be, a demand by physicians to politicians that the use of nuclear weapons be renounced would likely fall on deaf ears. There is another course of action that would be politically more acceptable—public education and the construction of shelters. The extent to which a civil defense program would reduce the number and degree of casualties in the case of a nuclear attack is supported by the data that Dr Hiatt cites. The casualty figures in the report by the Office of Technology Assessment were made with the assumption that

GAO tackles complexities of science policy

Unifying themes in science policy are generally hard to come by. But an attempt to do just that is coming out of an unlikely corner of the federal government, the General Accounting Office. GAO—the nation's bookkeeper in its ongoing mission of looking for waste in federal spending—now believes it needs an overall framework for evaluating the government's research and development effort. A study recently issued, Major Science and Technology Issues, attempts to provide that framework. Few in the past have come to grips with how science and technology interact with the U.S. policy, or federal form of governance, although some, including Congress' Office of Technology Assessment, have tried. But now, with the needs of a technological society rising, with budgets falling, with the milieu around science and technology changing drastically, and with U.S. vulnerabilities all too apparent, GAO is riding to the rescue. The science and technology problematique (the problem superseding all problems) in the ...

Office of Technology Assessment. Technology and Steel Industry Competitiveness. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1980. $8.00; GPO Stock Number 052-003-00760-6

Office of Technology Assessment. Technology and Steel Industry Competitiveness. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1980. $8.00; GPO Stock Number 052-003-00760-6

OTA update: World oil

Predicting the world oil supply is, in the words of a member of the Technology Assessment Board, ‘a risky proposition …a gamble.’ Nonetheless, the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) has made a general prediction, resulting from the study ‘World Petroleum Availability: 1980–2000,’ which was prepared in response to a request from the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. According to this report, in the future the United States will be unable to expect increased imports over current levels, and furthermore, this country will be facing much stiffer competition for world supplies, at lower import levels.

OTA once again is fighting for its life

Through its entire seven-year history, Congress' Office of Technology Assessment has neither tasted the luxury of security nor lived up to its grand humanistic concept. Intrigue from within, carping from without, bullying from some members of Congress, sudden resignations, and budgetary snafus have painted the agency as a place of palace coups, whispered threats, and failed promises. All its negative qualities boiled to the surface about 15 months ago when Russell Peterson resigned as its second director to become head of the National Audubon Society. Peterson had riled the OTA board, made up of 12 members of Congress, as well as several OTA staff because of a steely, independent manner. He also insisted on taking OTA beyond the capabilities of its staff and the comprehension of the board by embarking on vaguely conceived long-range holistic studies, all now abandoned. By March he left and the struggle for succession began. The main contenders ...

Politics of technology: OTA: Congress' own think tank: After seven years of controversy, the Office of Technology Assessment is shunning the spotlight to survive in a ‘political jungle’

Wouldn't it be a great idea to place a microscopic chip in commercial explosives so that, following a terrorist bombing, law enforcement officials could trace the explosive used to its last legal sale? Wouldn't that help to control terrorists?

The technology assessment and forecast program of the United States patent and trademark office

Often overlooked is the wealth of information in patents that makes patents useful to public policy making agencies and corporate management, among others. The source of this information is the bibliographic and classification data associated with each patent. much of which is required by law and hence is extremely accurate. These data serve to fingerprint the increment of technological activity disclosed in a patent. Possible ways of using the data include: — identification of emerging technologies — Monotoring foreign activity — identification of “actors” in the technology — tracking applications and impacts of a technology The objective of the technology assessment and forecast program of the United States Patent and Trademark Office is to stimulate the use of the patent file of the Office. The Office of Technology Assessment and Forecast (OTAF), which administers the program has assembled a master data base covering all U.S. patents. It periodically updates this base and adds new data items to it.

Recent OTA Projects and Progress

In 4 yr of operations, the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) has produced more than 50 reports to serve the needs of Congress and the public. The OTA assesses the social, economic, political, and environmental impacts of technological change. The OTA reports have dealt with a variety of topics and issues. These include studies of the energy budgets and plans of two administrations, the research plans of the U.S. EPA, prospects for solar energy, the dangers of nuclear proliferation and the need for safeguards and proposed new transportation systems. The OTA has met the legislative, budgetary, oversight and policy needs of more than 20 congressional committees. The OTA reports are also cited in floor debate, sometimes by both sides, on major issues before Congress. Executive branch agencies have sometimes changed their policies to reflect OTA findings without having been forced to do so by Congress.

Indecision and politics once more haunt OTA

Theorists about human growth say that maturity is attained through gradual successions of fragmentation and integration. If that's the case, then Congress' Office of Technology Assessment, made up of humans, must be streaking toward some measure of what mystics call higher consciousness. OTA's director, Russell W. Peterson, is leaving at the end of this week to take a long-desired, idyllic job as president of the National Audubon Society. In doing so, he leaves with similar uproar as did his predecessor, Emilio Q. Daddario, when he resigned 18 months ago. Things are not all the same, of course. Peterson—former head of research at Du Pont, former governor of Delaware, and onetime chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality—brought a high level of managerial skills and professionalism to the six-year-old agency. But what he could not do, many observers confide, was remove strong vestiges of personal ambition that here and there dot the agency. The result is ...

Washington Report. The frustrated reformers.

Stay in Washington long enough, and you'll see cycles of health-policy "reformers" arrive full of bright ideas and high hopes. And then, a few years later, many of them depart, and when they do, they almost invariably express despair about — as it's often put — "getting anything done."The round trips of these frustrates are along a variety of courses, but the most common starting points are academic institutions and nonprofit research organizations. The major workplaces in Washington are the House and Senate subcommittees concerned with health policy, the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, the Department of Health, Education, . . .

Alternative energy food top OTA priorities

Thirty‐two major issues facing society and the U.S. Congress have been ranked into a preliminary list of priorities for analysis by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), Congress's scientific foresight agency.In discussing the list, OTA director Russell W. Peterson explained some of the criteria used to develop it. They include the impact of the issue on the quality of life of future generations, the requirement that it involve the impact of new or existing technology, the utility of the study as an aid to Congressional decision making, and the appropriateness of OTA's undertaking the study rather than one of the other Congressional support agencies.