From: michaelryce [michaelryce@whyagain.com]
Sent: Friday, March 30, 2001 2:12 PM
To: fdadockets@oc.fda.gov
Subject: GMO,s

Okay, here's the one I sent out tonight: 

Dear FDA Commissioner, 

PLEASE take a step back and think about the concept of allowing genetically engineered plants into our food chain. Biology has a built-in intelligence that keeps this planet balanced. Every organism has been intricately evolving for millions of years in perfect balance to provide a mutual life chain for people, animals, plants, insects, water, ph levels, temperatures, oxygen levels... Genetic changes at the seeminly most minute level can change the entire eco system. These changes are designed by nature to be introduced into our world over thousands of years, in a gradual manner. What are we doing?????? 

On another level, there is the subject of the food itself. I have food allergies. I and innumerable others cannot eat certain foods. It is bad enough to genetically alter the plants, but to even consider not labeling these "foods" or not allowing the real foods to distinguish themselves from these Frankenfoods is an abomination. 

Your CHILDREN and mind will inherit the disaster that is potentially in the making. I urge you to go with your COMMON SENSE, not with the industrial food corporations when these life-changing and planet-changing decisions are made. GENETICALLY ENGINEERED PRODUCTS MUST BE LABELED AND THOROUGHLY TESTED FOR SAFETY!

I demand the right to know and choose what I am eating!

Please propose these rules:

* Require mandatory pre-market safety testing
* Require pre-market environmental review
* Require mandatory labeling of GE foods
* Require labeling of non-GE foods
* Require massive public notification prior to the marketing of a GE food
* Ensure public access to adequate information for independent review


* The FDA must require mandatory pre-market comprehensive environmental
review. Unlike conventional pollutants, where a given amount of pollutant
causes a limited amount of damage, a small number of mutant genes could
have a population explosion and reproduce forever, causing unlimited and
irreparable damage.

* The FDA must require mandatory pre-market long-term health testing. GE
products could be toxic, cause allergic responses, have lower nutritional
value, and compromise immune responses in consumers.

* The FDA must require mandatory labeling of GE products. 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 would be deprived of the critical knowledge needed to hold food
producers liable should any of these novel products be hazardous.

* The FDA must end its cozy relationship with the industries it purports to
be regulating. People have been allowed to work for a biotech company, then
work for the FDA writing the regulatory rules on that company's product,
then go back to working for the company. Ninety-two percent of FDA advisory
committee meetings had at least one conflict of interest.