From: Center for Food Safety [action@foodsafetynow.org]
Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2001 10:38 AM
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 Sir or Madam,
 
Your new policies on genetically engineered foods are unacceptable.  
 Despite overwhelming consumer demand, your agency still fails to require 
safety testing and mandatory labeling for GE foods.

The “notification” policy is an insult to consumers, and irresponsibly 
ignores strong scientific evidence of numerous potential health and 
environmental risks to GE foods. Surely the soybean/Brazil nut incident 
should have awakened the FDA to these potential problems.  You must 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.  Why 
then would you behave so irresponsibly? 

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.  If 
these products are indeed as safe as the FDA and the companies responsible 
for their production believe, why attempt to evade responsibility for them?

Your proposed rules ignore serious concerns, and are 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.


Sincerely,



Diane Holmes
3712 Ferndale Avenue
Nashville, TN, 37215

CC: 
The President
Vice President Dick Cheney
FDA Dockets Management [Docket No. 00N-1396]
Senator Fred Thompson
Senator William H. Frist
Representative Bob ClementFDA Dockets Management [Docket No. 00D-1598]


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