From: noblel@students.sonoma.edu
Sent: Monday, March 26, 2001 12:41 PM
To: fdadockets@oc.fda.gov; dan.noble@ebiusa.com
Subject: Docket 00N-1396 & Docket 00D-1598

To Whom it Should Concern,

As a physics student I have a keen interest in how technology affects ourselves, our society, and the planet.  Along with this, I feel I have gained an understanding of how making wrong assumptions can be, in fact, quite detrimental.  It is for this reason that I am writing to you.
From the invention of dynamite to the implementation of nuclear power, humans have taken great risks in favor of advancing our society and the technology that it is fueled by.  This, I fear, is the case with genetically modified organisms.  The primary difference, however, is that we cannot have a "controlled explosion" as we could with Nobel's dynamite.  There is no formula that predicts how much of the landscape will be altered by the "explosion" of a gene that either hadn't existed or was spliced from elsewhere in the environment.  It is this high degree of uncertainty that must give one pause when considering that we allow genetically modified organisms into the environment and subsequent food chain.
It is my hope that you take my words to heart and that they don't fall on deaf ears.  I say let research be done on genetically modified foods, but not in the society at large.  Let us not learn from our mistakes the hard way as is the case with fossil fuels and pesticiedes (among many other chemical technologies).  After all, nature was doing just fine before we came along.

Sincerely,
Leif W. Noble