From: Steven Wolf [sawolf@are.berkeley.edu]
Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2001 1:03 PM
To: fdadockets@oc.fda.gov; action201@sustainableagriculture.net
Subject: labeling GMOs

Dear FDA:

As a cook, eater, citizen and social scientist I strongly favor mandatory
labeling of GMOs.

1. Giving consumers more information will make markets work more effectively. 

2. Going public and having open disclosure will forcing the debate into the
open.  The failed approach employed to date of suppressing consumers'
knowledge must be reversed.  Only through openness can the technology have
a chance to develop and the benefits realized.

3. The federal governement's legitimacy will be bolstered by mandating
labeling.  Alternatively, a no labeling policy in service of the industry
or requiring nonsense labels by those wishing to state their non-GMO
status(e.e., non-GMO is not safer) will further weakend the power of the
state and undermine faith in government.  We will not win by forcing food
products down anyone's throat.

4.  The science is ambiguous and always will be.  This is not a
technocracy.  Publish the science, all of it.  Label the food, all of it.
Let families and people sort out competing messages.

5.  If you think GMO info will confuse rather than clarify, I suggest you
look at nutritional information on packaging now and in a larger sense
advertising in the sense large.

Steven Wolf
1610 Stannage Ave.
Berkeley, CA 94702


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Steven Wolf
phone: (510) 643-3342				
email: sawolf@are.berkeley.edu
University of CA - Berkeley
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