International Center for Technology Assessment
What’s New:
Comments to interagency hearing on the “Coordinated Framework”
October 30, 2015
NOT A COORDINATED FRAMEWORK: The Coordinated Framework is a weak policy guidance document that gives an illusion of regulation while failing to coordinate agency actions and failing to stimulate needed regulations specific to new GE organisms.
Comments to the National Academy of Sciences/National Academy of Medicines Planning Committee Organizing the International Summit on Human Gene Editing
October 5, 2015
The May 18, 2015 announcement of this NAS/NAM project noted that “recent experiments to attempt to edit human genes also have raised important questions about the potential risks and ethical concerns of altering the human germline. Future advances are likely to raise new questions.”
Comments to the EPA workshop on regulation of synbio algae
September 30, 2015
…We are happy that EPA is revising its regulations for the oversight of synbio organisms. In 2010, we called for the agencies of the US government to quit pretending that the coordinated framework was adequate for regulating synthetic biology and issued with some 120 other groups, the Principles for the Oversight of Synthetic Biology. These comments support the Principles before recommending improvements to TSCA for synbio organisms…
Our mission:
The International Center for Technology Assessment (CTA) is a non-profit, bi-partisan organization committed to providing the public with full assessments and analyses of technological impacts on society. Recent history is filled with profound technological changes and scientific discoveries–in such fields as telecommunications, nuclear power and weaponry, computers, pesticides, car and air travel, modern medicine, genetic engineering–that have permanently altered our communities, countries and ecosystems. These innovations demonstrate that technology is among the most powerful, and often destructive, agents of social change in modern times. CTA was formed to assist the general public and policymakers better understand how technology affects society.
CTA is devoted to exploring the economic, ethical, social, environmental and political impacts that can result from the applications of technology or technological systems. Using this holistic form of analysis, CTA provides the public with independent, timely, and comprehensive information about the potential impacts of technology. Equally as important, CTA is the country’s primary legal organization fighting megatechnologies and technocracies. Using legal petitions, comments, and litigation CTA is at the forefront of the battles to limit genetic engineering, end the patenting of life, address greenhouse gas emissions, protect animals from abuse in research and agriculture, and halt deforestation.