From: LTDEWING@aol.com
Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2001 9:54 AM
To: fdadockets@oc.fda.gov
Subject: dockets . 

rights of the consumer. A sample letter follows.


Send your e-mails to fdadockets@oc.fda.gov, subject re: dockets .

00N-1396 and 00D-1598, or write to:


FDA Commissioner Dockets Management Branch 

(HFA 305) Food and Drug Administration 5630 Fisher's Lane, 

Room. 1061 Rockville MD 20852


For the full text of the FDA rules, visit:

Premarket Notice Concerning Bioengineered Foods

http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~lrd/fr010118.html

and

http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/biolabgu.html

Guidance for Industry. Voluntary Labeling Indicating Whether Foods Have or

Have Not Been Developed Using Bioengineering

======================================================

Sample Letter:


Dear FDA Commissioner,


The proposed Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations does not 

require labels or safety tests on genetically engineered (GE) food. The

new rules continue to deny all Americans the right to know what is in our

food, while protecting the economic interests of biotech corporations.


Labeling GE foods would protect the public from potential hazardous 

health effects such as food allergies and toxicity that can only be traced 

if GE foods can be identified. By refusing to require both labeling and 

mandatory pre-market safety testing of foods, the FDA puts consumers' 

health at risk, ignores possible environmental hazards, and dos not satisfy 

the overwhelming desire of American consumers to exercise freedom 

of choice in the marketplace.


It is not enough to require that firms simply notify you of their intent to 

market a food produced with genetic engineering; this is no substitute for 

thorough pre-market safety testing. The proposed "voluntary labeling" 

guidelines will do nothing to inform consumers of the presence of genetically 

engineered ingredients in their food, because biotech companies and food 

manufacturers are unlikey to undertake to label their foods in the future. 


Therefore, I urge you to keep all genetically engineered ingredients and 

crops off the market unless or until: 


 They are labeled to ensure consumers' right-to-know; and 


 The biotechnology corporations that produce them are held responsible 

for any harms they may cause.

This is of paramount concern to our health as a nation.  America already has 
one of the highest rates of degenerative diesease in the Western world.  
Could it have anything to do with the more than 75,000 new chemicals we have 
added to our 'food" and its growing processes in the last decades?  One has 
to wonder.

Please take this seriously and require labeling of all GE foods and 
ingredients.

Thank you.  Sincerely,

Linda T Dewing
55 Modena Ave
Providence RI 02908