From: Maria.Leza@greenpeaceusa.2rad.net
Sent: Friday, April 06, 2001 10:25 PM
To: Food and Drug Administration
Subject: Docket # 00N-1396 and #00D-1598


Food and Drug Administration ,

As a genetic engineer of 20 years experience, I am extremely
concerned that the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) has proposed regulations that still
fail to require safety tests on genetically
engineered (GE) food. In addition, it is important to properly 
label GE foods. We, Americans, have a right to know what we are 
consuming just like our Japanese and European counterparts. 

Labels must be required to protect the public from potential
health effects that could only be traced if GE foods can be
identified, yet the FDA's "voluntary labeling" guidelines will
leave thousands of unlabeled GE foods on our supermarket
shelves. Furthermore, the agency's proposed rule only
requires companies to notify FDA when bringing GE foods
to market, but it fails to require any safety testing.  
That is an abysmal oversight considering the potential for
GE foods to trigger dangerous allergies, change the
nutritional value of foods, and cause irreversible harm to
the environment. The FDA appears to be playing politics with
our food, disregarding science-based precautions that other
countries have implemented.


I urge you to reconsider this proposal and insure that GE
foods are subject to pre-market testing and labeling.
Americans deserve the same protections as the rest of the
world. 

Maria Leza, Ph.D.

maria_leza@hms.harvard.edu