From: Center for Food Safety [action@foodsafetynow.org]
Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2001 1:49 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 
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 FDA,
 
As the only body with the authority to regulate food, you have a moral 
 responsibility to ensure that the highest safety standards are met.  I 
thank you for all the good things you have done in the past, and I will 
not forget them.  However, if you continue to allow producers to 
self-regulate their safety standards, despite overwhelming demand from the 
public for stricter regulations, you will be putting the public at risk of 
your own free will.  Producers in a capitalist society are only interested 
in profit, and therefore they make very poor judges of safety.  You know 
this.  You also know that there is always a chance, no matter how minute, 
that something will slip into the market, something that will make 
StarLink Corn look like nothing, in comparison to.  Finally, you know that 
if this were to happen, the blood would be on your hands.  For you, and 
only you, can ensure the safety of our food.  I understand that the 
pressure of corporate interests and globalization is enourmous.  However, 
it is your duty to the American people, and to humanity, to resist that 
pressure, and do what you know is right.

If this letter does not arouse a sense of moral responsibility in you, 
that is very unfortunate.  But it certainly does not mean we will pack up 
and go away.  On the contrary, I can assure you that the fight for food 
safety and corporate accountability is getting stronger by the minute.  We 
will not give up until justice is served.  This is not intended as a 
threat.  By all means we want to co-operate with the FDA.  But safety 
regulations are a MUST for genetically modified foods.  Here now is the 
form letter:

I am deeply concerned about 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. I am 
worried that your “notification” policy serves only to hurt 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. 

If you won't demand more testing and lableling, how will we know if any of 
these possiblilities are a reality?

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.

I am afraid for us all if we are forced to eat things we know nothing 
about.  At the least, we deserve to know what is in our food.  We can make 
our own decisions from there.


Sincerely,



Mike Pesa
575 Breetz Dr.
Campbell, OH, 44405

CC: 
The President
Vice President Dick Cheney
FDA Dockets Management [Docket No. 00N-1396]
Senator Mike DeWine
Senator George Voinovich
Representative James A. Traficant, Jr.FDA 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