From: dorothy colby [dacolby@home.com]
Sent: Sunday, April 01, 2001 8:52 AM
To: fdadockets@oc.fda.gov
Subject: dockets 00N-1396 and 000-1598

To Whom it may concern:

I am a concerned consumer who is requesting that you make the companies PROVE with 5 years or MORE of clinical testing that the genetically engineered foods are TRULY as healthy as those that are organic.  For too many years you have allowed companies who make big profits to add all kinds of chemicals and preservatives to our foods without proving that these things are not harmful.

Each year hundreds of us, including myself, spend millions of dollars on doctors, prescriptions, environmental filters, and other aids to help us exist in this chemical environment that your organization has allowed to become more and more polluted.  We are termed "allergic people."  We are labeled as "disabled."  Do you NEED more of us to support??
 
 I am an elementary school teacher dealing daily with multiple children who have problems existing in the artificially engineered environment that you have allowed our nation to become.  Many of these children will never be productive members of our society thus all of us will have to pay millions to help them survive.    They did not ask to be "special".  We should begin to take responsibility now for what we are doing to our foods.
 
Why do we need "engineered"  foods?  Why do we continue to pollute ourselves with NON-FOODS?  Whose advantage is this kind of "new product"  servicing?  Does it enhance our nutrition or simply line the pockets of the food producers?  

Please consider what you are allowing to happen in our food chain.  Please make stringent and restrictive guidelines for these products.  Do NOT allow companies to self-regulate.  That is simply asking for more problems in our nation.  All ingredients of all products need to be CLEARLY labeled on the packages.  Sending a general letter of disclosure is a JOKE in terms of regulation.  Our "food" producing companies need to be made responsible  for what they are doing to the consumer.

Thank you for your consideration,
Dorothy A. Colby