From: Sharalyn Harris-Hart [sharalyn@joymail.com] Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2001 4:58 PM To: fdadockets@oc.fda.gov Subject: Docket 00N-1396 & Docket 00D-1598 Dear Food and Drug Administration, I am writing to ask you to, at the very least, require labeling for genetically engineered products. As a professional free-lance writer, I have had to research this subject and have been very distressed at what I have found. Financially, you and the food industry may see benefits,but isn't if it is not obvious to you that science is not advanced enough to determine the end results of genetic engineering, then you need to do more research and you need to read more history.You also need to listen to the people; we the people do not want genetic engineered foods. Only naive, uneducated people can believe that altered genes have no effect in human consumption, or that these wild-card genes can be controlled after their release into the enviroment. Man can can do any creative thing they can imagine, but altering genes, making gross, radical, surigical changes these fundamental levels of nature that have been evolving for thousands of years,can only be called arrogant. At 55, I am a mature, well-educated person and am not by nature radical. But this issue awakens in me a great anger that you, our government, and the food industry could be so profit-oriented that you would allow this monstrous playing with our food source. When every chemical medicine on the market has side effects, how can you believe for even one minute that altering the chemistry of nature will not also have side effects? When we have over and over again seen the dramatically negative results of man-made products such as DDT and Freon gas, all touted in their early days to be "mirical" cures for certain problems, how can you believe for even a minute that creating foodstuffs out of man-altered genes can be safe? What food company propaganda do you listen to that you would even consider releasing this to the public UNTESTED? Americans in general seem to ge caught up in the glamour of genetic engineering; perhaps you are one of these people, or perhaps you are under pressure from the food companies. But please, please take the responsible path of requiring much, much, much more testing to be done before genetically engieered genes and their unatlerable consequences are released on the world to any greater degree than they already have been, and if you do allow it in foods, then at the very least, require that it be labeled. sincerely, Sharalyn Harris 433 East 2nd Street Avon Park FL 33825 863-453-3313 ---------------------------------------------------------- Register Chinese Character Domain Name- ONLY US$17/year! 100 Chinese Domain Names are registered every minute! Time is clicking, what are you waiting for? Go to http://www.chinese-dns.com Register NOW!!! Verisign中文頂級域名現在熱賣中﹗ 每分鐘都有100個中文域名被註冊﹐您還在等什麼呢﹖ 每個網址美金17元/年﹗現在就到 http://www.chinese-dns.com 註冊﹗