From: Center for Food Safety [action@foodsafetynow.org]
Sent: Saturday, January 20, 2001 12:59 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,
 
Genetically modified foods MUST be labeled!  If they cannot be labeled for 
 what they are, they do not deserve to be called food, as *real* food is 
easily labeled and known for what it is.  A failure and reluctance to 
label are in themselves an admission that not all is in order, not all is 
as it should be.

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 are obviously aware that these foods can be toxic, have 
been shown to cause allergic responses, can have lower nutrition value as 
well as unknown nutritive effects, can compromise immune responses in 
consumers, and is causing irreparable damage to the environment as 
genetically modified crops are being left free to affect neighboring, non 
GE crops, and produce unknown strains, as has already happened (and been 
documented) in Britain and Australia. 

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.  

We have "voluntary labeling" right now -- any producer of GE food is free 
to label the product as such right now -- and not one of them do, in spite 
of overwhelming consumer demand for it, and have fought it every step of 
the way.  Thus, we already know "voluntary labeling" does not and will not 
work.  

Consumers will also be deprived of the critical knowledge they need to 
hold food producers liable should any of these novel foods prove 
hazardous, which is, perhaps, what they are looking for: an immunity they 
do not deserve, bought at the expense of the public health and maintained 
only by enforcing secrecy and refusing to play fair.  Monsanto, Aventis, 
and other GMO players have already proven their inability to 
self-regulate, given their behavior in Europe regarding "Frankenfood" in 
the last two years.  Europe, and especially France, has taken a stand 
against this egregious corporate behavior.  We must do the same.

Your proposed rules ignore serious concerns, and very much 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,

J. Asher

J Asher
3109-D Tacoma Street
Charlotte, NC, 28208

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]


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