From: Center for Food Safety [action@foodsafetynow.org]
Sent: Monday, January 22, 2001 5:24 PM
To: FDA Commissioner
Cc: president@whitehouse.gov; vice.president@whitehouse.gov;
fdadockets@oc.fda.gov; fdadockets@oc.fda.gov
Subject: Oppose the New FDA 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 have recent and ominous experience that shows how dangerous our American 
 food already is, even before it becomes totally saturated with GE and 
irradiated foods.  My daughter, who developed extensive food allergies in 
the US as an adult, traveled to Spain recently where, for two weeks, she 
ate anything she wanted--all the things that had caused her grief in the 
US--and suffered no ill effects!  What this tells us is that our food 
supply is already contaminated by additives, processing, pesticides, etc., 
to the point where it is unsafe.  And now you propose to make it even more 
unfit for consumption, without even giving us the right to know what we 
are consuming.

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 and actual health and 
environmental risks to GE foods. You should be aware that these foods 
could be toxic, could cause additional 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.


Sincerely,



Donna Quilter
15410 Cedar Grove Rd. SE
Issaquah, WA, 98027

CC: 
The President
Vice President Dick Cheney
FDA Dockets Management [Docket No. 00N-1396]
Senator Patty Murray
Senator Maria Cantwell
Representative Jennifer DunnFDA Dockets Management [Docket No. 00D-1598]


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