From: rayclough [rayclough@email.msn.com]
Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2001 2:00 PM
To: fdadockets@oc.fda.gov
Subject: Docket 00N-1396 & Docket 00D-1598

I would like to express my concerns about Genetically Engineered foods. 
 
1.  The FDA must require labeling of all foods with GE contents.  If I don't want to consume them, I should be able to decide that for myself.  To deny me that right is to take away a fundamental freedom even more basic than freedom of speech.  I have a choice about whether or not I speak.  I do not have a choice about whether or not I eat.  
2.  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.
3.  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.
4.  The FDA must end its cozy relationship with the industries it purports to be regulating. Failure to adhere to this simple principle is the only conceivable reason that the proposed lack of mandatory labeling could have come forward. 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 absurd.

Thank you,

Ray Clough
18000 Burbank Blvd., apt 4
Encino, CA. 91316

rayclough@msn.com