for deregulation. The committee is unaware of any other attempt to involve the public in this specific assessment.

This chapter has reviewed case studies of the three primary APHIS regulatory pathways for field release of transgenic organisms as well as a representative sampling of the vast array of transgenic species, phenotypes, and molecular mechanisms designed to obtain those phenotypes. In many cases the committee simply reports, without much comment, how and with what information APHIS made a specific decision. The committee has little to add in those cases. In certain cases, it has pointed out situations in which APHIS might have improved its assessments. The committee has supplied substantial supporting text to explain how those improvements might have been made. While it is recognized that a few of those suggestions benefit from hindsight, most of the suggestions are based on scientific information available, but not utilized, at the time of assessment. The opportunities for improvement of assessment provide a context for the committee’s recommendations in the next chapter.