From: Center for Food Safety [action@foodsafetynow.org] Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2001 10:34 AM 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, I am outraged by 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. 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 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. 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. As I once tried to set up our farm to grow organically, only to watch the water shed buffer tall grass prarie next to us mowed down and drilled for round-up ready beans and repeatedly over-sprayed rendering our land chemically unfit and then finding out the farmer with GE beans mixed them at the elevator in spite of a no "round-up" beans sign, I am selling our farm. Further, my children will no longer eat the vegetables and fruits from the store, as , despite repeated washings we all get diahhrea when we eat from the store. The produce manager has told us he gets sick from the produce, too, and and thinks all of the product is GE and he would like to be able to label it. He buys his produce at a local health food store, labeled 'organic'. Won't you please protect us and our children from this horrible situation by strictly regulating this runaway problem, with more strict labeling that is not so producer friendly but is killing us all? Sincerely, Kent Gregg Kent Gregg 724 Ronalds Iowa City, Ia, 52245 CC: The President Vice President Dick Cheney FDA Dockets Management [Docket No. 00N-1396] Senator Charles E. Grassley Senator Tom Harkin Representative James A. LeachFDA 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