From: Valerie Moon [starrmoon@hotmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2001 12:56 PM
To: fdadockets@oc.fda.gov
Subject: Docket 00N-1396 & Docket 00D-1598

Regarding GE food.  Don't do it.

Yes, I know GE food is already being marketed, but my response is still, 
Don't do it.

There are so many problems with existing New Technology ('new' being 
relative - look at the troubles cars have caused) and GE food is even more 
problematic than 'hard' techological 'improvements.'  Just look at the 
energy crisis in California - how much of that is due to the marvelous 
machine I'm presently writing on?  Ditto the area-code crisis. (and yes, I'm 
aware of the irony of my using a computer & email to complain about 
technology)  Those problems are containable and we can voluntarily change 
our habits to compensate.  With GE food any problem is not containable and 
can't easily be removed or not used:  Starlink corn, for example.  Once the 
genes are 'in the wild' we're stuck with them.

I concur with the following:


>* 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.

That GE foods are already in the supermarkets without labelling is such a 
deep violation of the consumers' trust that words fail.  Brass monkeys 
should have so much, uh, 'nerve.'

>
>* 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.  Ninety-two percent of FDA advisory
>   committee meetings had at least one conflict of interest.

Valerie Moon
516 Shawn Drive
Belton, MO   64012
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