From: mail@dalby.com
Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2001 7:04 AM
To: fdadockets@oc.fda.gov
Subject: Proposed GE food rules are inadequate and disrespectful to
Americans

>FDA Commissioner
>Docket No. OON-1396 / OOD-1598
>FDA Dockets Management Branch (HFA-305)
>Food and Drug Administration
>5360 Fishers Lane, Room 1061
>Rockville, MD 20852
>
>March 23, 2001
>
>Honorable Commissioner:
>
>I am writing to express my strong opposition to the FDA's proposed rule and
>guidance on genetically engineered (GE) foods.  The agency's voluntary
>labeling and notification proposals are totally inadequate to protect human
health, our environment, and my right to know what I'm eating.

>* The FDA must require mandatory pre-market comprehensive
>  environmental review. Unlike conventional pollutants,
>  where a given amount of pollutant causes a limited amount
>  of damage, a small number of mutant genes could have a
>  population explosion and reproduce forever, causing
>  unlimited and irreparable damage.
>
>* The FDA must require mandatory pre-market long-term health
>  testing. GE products could be toxic, cause allergic
>  responses, have lower nutritional value, and compromise
>  immune responses in consumers.
>
>* The FDA must require mandatory labeling of GE products.
>  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
>  would be deprived of the critical knowledge needed to hold
>  food producers liable should any of these novel products
>  be hazardous.
>
>* The FDA must end its cozy relationship with the industries
>  it purports to be regulating. People have been allowed to
>  work for a biotech company, then work for the FDA writing the
>  regulatory rules on that company's product, then go back to
>  working for the company.  This is blasphemous!
 
Respectfully,
Richard Dalby