From: clpick@earthlink.net
Sent: Saturday, March 10, 2001 11:46 AM
To: fdadockets@oc.fda.gov
Cc: clpick@earthlink.net
Subject: Oppose FDA's New Regulations on Genetically Engineered Food

Carrie Pickett
81 Glen Ave 303
Oakland, CA  94611

clpick@earthlink.net


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

Dear FDA,
 
Your new policies on genetically engineered (GE) foods fail to sufficiently protect American citizens from becoming unwitting subjects in scientific experimentation. Despite overwhelming consumer demand, your agency still refuses 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. 

the "voluntary labeling" policy, which denies consumers a basic right to know, is a farce. 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.

As the FOOD and Drug Administration your primary aim here should be to protect the American food supply from unnecessary experimental, and possibly irreversibly harmful, adulteration. 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.

Sincerely,

Carrie Laing Pickett

Carrie Pickett