From: EXECSEC
Sent: Friday, March 09, 2001 8:42 AM
To: Dockets, FDA
Subject: FW: Docket # 00N-1396 and #00D-1598



> ----------
> From: 	james brandt[SMTP:GERMANIA_MARKET@MSN.COM]
> Sent: 	Friday, March 09, 2001 8:42:25 AM
> To: 	Commissioner
> Subject: 	Docket # 00N-1396 and #00D-1598
> Auto forwarded by a Rule
> 
> 
Commissioner ,

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 what
is in our food.
 

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 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.
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.  The impact of GE crops on all plants both wild and cultivated will be affected unless someone figures out out to stop wind pollination and "volunteer" GE crops  that will affect non-GE  plants.  I can assure you without further scientific study from some company that markets these GE crops, that it will happen.  Farmers have relied on common sense for centuries, and common sense will tell you that you will never be able to fully predict what effect genetically engineered crops will have on all biological systems, which are, as a matter of fact, interrelated.   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. 


james brandt
601 w. moss mill rd
Egg Harbor, NJ 08215
USA
germania_market@msn.com