From: ana@nimbo.com
Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2001 4:19 PM
To: fdadockets@oc.fda.gov
Subject: Oppose FDA's New Regulations on Genetically Engineered Food

Ana Lois-Borzi
250 3rd Ave. N.  224
Minneapolis, MN  55401 
ana@nimbo.com


RE: Docket No. 00N-1396, and 00D-1598

Dear FDA,
 
I am very disappointed 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. I really would like you to change your proposals by making GE food labelling mandatory.  My family and I have a basic right to know what we are eating. We want to trust that what we eat won't harm us or the environment.  Right now, genetically modified foods do both.

I am greatly opposed to your new "voluntary labeling" policy, which denies me, a basic consumer, simple knowledge. 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 the convenience of industry at the expense of public health, openess of information and the environment. I don't believe this is the state in which things should be.  I trust you will take my concern  into serious consideration.

Sincerely,



Ana Lois-Borzi