This is to correct something in your update. ETC group in fact did provide comments and attended the larger meeting held by Venter Institute in December. You can check with Michelle Garfinkel of the Venter Institute who organised that meeting. However by the time of the December meeting most of the report was already written. The report (which is not published yet) acknowledges that the authors failed to consult with civil society in their process.

On related matters we are currently attending Synthetic Biology 3.0 where these things are under discussion and we are contributing to that discussion and speaking in an ethics discussion this afternoon. You can read our blog reports from SynBio 3.0 at http://www.etcblog.org

best
Jim Thomas
ETC Group.