From: Center for Food Safety [action@foodsafetynow.org]
Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2001 7:50 PM
To: FDA Commissioner
Cc: president@whitehouse.gov; vice.president@whitehouse.gov;
fdadockets@oc.fda.gov; fdadockets@oc.fda.gov
Subject: Oppose the FDAs New Regulations on GE Foods!!

FDA Commissioner Jane Henney
Dockets Management Branch (HFA 305)
Food and Drug Administration
5630 Fisher's Lane, rm. 1061
Rockville, MD 20852

RE: Docket No. 00N-1396, and 00D-1598

Dear Ms. Henney,
 
I am outraged by your new policies on genetically engineered (GE)foods. 
 Despite overwhelming consumer demand, your agency still fails to require 
safety testing and mandatory labeling for GE foods. Your “notification” 
policy is an insult to consumers, and irresponsibly ignores strong 
scientific evidence of numerous potential health and environmental risks 
to GE foods. You should be aware that these foods could be toxic, could 
cause allergic responses, could have lower nutrition value, could 
compromise immune responses in consumers, and could cause irreparable 
damage to the environment. 

I am also greatly opposed to your new “voluntary labeling” policy, which 
denies consumers a basic right to know. Without mandatory labeling, 
neither consumers nor health professionals will know if an allergic or 
toxic reaction was the result of a genetically engineered food. Consumers 
will also be deprived of the critical knowledge they need to hold food 
producers liable should any of these novel foods prove hazardous.

Your proposed rules ignore serious concerns, and appear to be a decision 
made to convenience industry at the expense of public health and the 
environment. I will not accept your attempt to make me a guinea pig of 
these untested foods, and I trust you will take my concern along with the 
thousands of others into serious consideration.

Note: the above is a form letter with which I most emphatically agree.  In 
addition, I would like to ask what is going on in your agency that 
encourages you to ignore our quite valid concerns?  Are you all in some 
alternate universe?  Are you under some kind of pressure from powerful 
groups with lots of money?  Are you privy to some kind of secret 
information that justifies your actions?  What part of 'the people have a 
right to know what they are eating' don't you understand?  You require 
labels for additives, dyes, preservatives, and everything else, yet you 
refuse to label for gmos.  Why?  Do you consider the human population of 
this country to be a huge crop of guinea pigs to be experimented on by 
multinational corporations?  Do you personally gobble up gmo food with 
abandon and feed it to your family?  Why are you so sure that gmos are 
'just like any other food' in spite of the fact that hundreds of 
scientists disagree?

I want you to do your job, which is to keep our food supply as safe as 
possible and to protect us from powerful corporate interests.  I don't 
believe you are doing that job, not only because of gmos but also because 
of such other phenomena as rBGH, steroids, antibiotic abuse in animal 
agriculture, and so on.

If you have reasonable answers for my questions and concerns, I would like 
to hear them.

Sincerely,

David Shelton

David Shelton
1932 Sterling Rd
Charlotte, NC, 28209

CC: 
The President
Vice President Dick Cheney
FDA Dockets Management [Docket No. 00N-1396]
Senator Jesse Helms
Senator John Edwards
Representative Sue Myrick
Representative Melvin L. WattFDA Dockets Management [Docket No. 00D-1598]


To the recipient -- this fax/email message has come to you via the Center 
for Food Safety web site -- a public tool for providing input on food 
safety issues. The user/site visitor had complete control over editing the 
content of this message.  Thus, the opinions expressed in this message are 
not necessarily those of CFS or its parent organization, ICTA.  Please 
contact CFS at (202)547-9359 or email office@centerforfoodsafety.org with 
any questions.  Thank you.

___________________________________________________________________________
This letter was composed at www.foodsafetynow.org, a web site maintained 
by:
The Center for Food Safety, 666 Pennsylvania Ave, SE, Suite 302
Washington, DC 20003 
PH: (202)547-9359    Fax: (202)547-9429    
Email: office@centerforfoodsafety.org
web: www.centerforfoodsafety.org