From: Center for Food Safety [action@foodsafetynow.org]
Sent: Tuesday, February 13, 2001 4:07 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 
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 enraged by your decision to deliberately ignore the health protection 
 and food education demands of a substantial majority of Americans.  Your 
failure to adopt labeling policies on genetically engineered (GE)foods is 
absurd, and another example of political ass-kissing of corporate 
political contributors.  Your recent statement that food labeling is 
neither necessary nor legal is one of the more stupid, lazy attitudes I 
have ever encountered.

In the face of overwhelming consumer demand, your agency must 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 me my basic right to know what is in the food I eat. 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.  That is simply a page out of Orwelle's "1984," and is 
unacceptable public policy.

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 strongly suggest you take my concerns along 
with the concerns of millions of other Americans, and modify these rules 
accordingly.


Sincerely,


Jeffrey A. Schimpff
Madison, Wisconsin



Jeffrey Schimpff
2721 Kendall Avenue
Madison, WI, 53705

CC: 
The President
Vice President Dick Cheney
FDA Dockets Management [Docket No. 00N-1396]
Senator Herb Kohl
Senator Russell D. Feingold
Representative Tammy BaldwinFDA Dockets Management [Docket No. 00D-1598]


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