From: Center for Food Safety [action@foodsafetynow.org]
Sent: Sunday, March 25, 2001 4:29 PM
To: FDA Commissioner
Cc: president@whitehouse.gov; vice.president@whitehouse.gov;
fdadockets@oc.fda.gov; fdadockets@oc.fda.gov
Subject: Oppose the New FDA Regulations on GE Foods!

FDA Commissioner 
Dockets Management Branch (HFA 305) 
Food and Drug Administration 
5630 Fisher's Lane, rm. 1061 
Rockville, MD 20852 

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

Dear FDA, 

I am outraged by your new policies on genetically engineered (GE)foods. 
 Despite overwhelming consumer demand, your agency ignores the demands of 
the very people that you are sworn to protect. You still refuse to require 
safety testing and mandatory labeling for GE foods. Your so-called 
“notification” policy is an insult to consumers, and irresponsibly and 
dangerously ignores strong scientific evidence of numerous potential 
health and environmental risks to GE foods. You are 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. You know that there is no going 
back for once these GE products are released into the environment. 

I am vehemently opposed to your new “voluntary labeling” policy, which 
denies consumers a basic right to know. 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 experimental foods prove hazardous. 
The reason why the food producers will not label their GE products as such 
is that obvious, and the reason why the FDA won't make them do so is also 
that obvious. 

Your proposed rules ignore serious concerns, and are obviously a decision 
made to convenience industry at the expense of public health and the 
environment. Once again, the FDA yields to the almighty dollar rather than 
do the right thing. I will not accept your attempt to make me a guinea pig 
of these untested foods, and I demand that you take my concerns along with 
the thousands of others into serious consideration. If you choose to 
ignore my plea for humanity and the environment, my only wish that each of 
you FDA policy-makers and your families are the first to reap the 
"benefits" of consuming, untried, untested, experimental GE foods. 


Sincerely, 

American Citizen-And I vote!





Thomas Beatty
6 Hillside Drive
Mahopac, NY, 10541

CC: 
The President
Vice President Dick Cheney
FDA Dockets Management [Docket No. 00N-1396]
Senator Charles Schumer
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton
Representative Sue W. Kelly
Representative Benjamin A. GilmanFDA Dockets Management [Docket No. 
00D-1598]


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