From: Richard Geggie [rgeggie@monitor.net]
Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2001 11:27 PM
To: fdadockets@oc.fda.gov
Subject: genetically modified foods

I strongly protest what is happening, or better, what is not happening to
protect my health and the health of my grandchildren.

I know you will do what you can to resist influence by corporations blind to
the impact of what they are doing. 

The following list is shameful and persons party to any of it will someday
be held very responsible for participating in such disrespectful, dangerous,
and sad madness. 

 Present FDA policy 
* Does not require mandatory pre-market safety testing

* Does not require pre-market environmental review

* Does not require mandatory labeling of GE foods

* Restricts voluntary labeling of non-GE foods

* Requires a mere letter of notification prior to the marketing of a GE food

* Fails to ensure public access to adequate information for independent
review

* Is supported by industry and opposed by consumer groups.  The FDA is
supposed to protect all people, not industry people. 

 

I want the following: 

* 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.

* 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.

* The FDA must require mandatory labeling of GE products. 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 would be deprived of the critical knowledge needed to hold food
producers liable should any of these novel products be hazardous.

* The FDA must end its cozy relationship with the industries it purports to
be regulating. 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.  Ninety-two percent of FDA advisory
committee meetings had at least one conflict of interest.

Enough is enough.  
Richard Geggie