From: PJ John-Paul [good4u@jps.net]
Sent: Tuesday, February 13, 2001 4:49 PM
To: Food and Drug Administration
Subject: Docket # 00N-1396 and #00D-1598


Food and Drug Administration ,

I am extremely concerned that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has proposed regulations that still
fail to require labels or safety tests on genetically engineered (GE) food. 

Labels on GE foods are required in: Japan, Russia, and throughout Europe, yet your new proposal continues to deny Americans the right to know whether their foods are genetically engineered.  The labels of genetically engineered foods read as if the food contained within were not altered genetically.  It appears to be an act of ommission designed to purposefully mislead the consumers by keeping them uninformed.  My understanding of the job of the FDA leads me to believe by continuing to mislead the public you are not doing what you were initially placed in position to do.
 
Labels must be required to protect the public from potential health effects that could only be traced if GE foods can be
identified, yet FDA's "voluntary abeling" 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.
Doctors and scientists have warned about the potential for GE foods to trigger dangerous allergies, change the nutritional value of foods, and cause irreversible harm to the environment. 

Those of you who are in the positions of power in the FDA, I ask you to please reconsider your position and place the safety of the consumers, the US citizens, who are also voters, ahead of the lobby interests.  Please regard and put into place the science-based precautions that other countries have implemented.

I urge you to replace your current proposal with one that will insure that GE foods are subjected to pre-market testing and labeling which identifies them as GE foods.

Americans deserve the same protections as the rest of the world. 


PJ John-Paul
33 Helen Ave
Concord, CA 94518
USA
good4u@jps.net