WASHINGTON — A federal committee today approved history's first use of gene therapy to treat fatal diseases.

The Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee of the National Institutes of Health approved two procedures in which foreign genes will be inserted into the cells of patients who have one of two fatal diseases.

The therapies are for treatment of patients with a malignant skin cancer and for children with an inherited immune system deficiency.

"This is a historic decision," said Gerard J. McGarrity, the chairman of the committee. "What we have done today is add gene therapy to vaccines, antibiotics and radiation in the medical arsenal. Medicine has been waiting thousands of years for this."