From: rosena@gunet.georgetown.edu
Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2001 10:31 AM
To: fdadockets@oc.fda.gov
Cc: rosena@gunet.georgetown.edu
Subject: Oppose FDA's New Regulations on Genetically Engineered Food

Andrea Rosen
3266 Worthington St., NW
Washington, DC  20015

rosena@gunet.georgetown.edu


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

Dear FDA,
 
I am outraged by your new policies on genetically engineered (GE) foods. The inconsistency of your stance--from the current L(lauditory) labeling, I can measure to the miligram how much sodium I'm ingesting, but I don't know if I'm eating food that produces its own pesticides, which I'm also ingesting! 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. 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 consumers a basic right to know. 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 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 trust you will take my concern along with the thousands of others into serious consideration.

Until GE labeling takes effect, I will restrict my purchases of mainstream American grocery products to toilet paper (recycled post-consumer TP, of course).  Thank God for Whole Foods!

Sincerely,



Andrea Rosen