From: Ken Walton [kwalton@mum.edu]
Sent: Saturday, March 31, 2001 2:00 PM
To: fdadockets@oc.fda.gov
Subject: Docket 00N-1396 & Docket 00D-1598

FDA:

	As a Ph.D. trained in molecular biology,  I am outraged by 
the failure of our government to protect its citizens from the 
dangerous products being produced by large corporations. The FDA has 
ceased to be a defender of public safety and is now merely a 
handmaiden to these corporations. Corporations are not interested in 
our safety or in the future of our country. The profit motive is 
their only law, and this is a great shame for humanity. We are the 
laughing stock of the world. Any half-educated individual can 
understand that there are major risks inherent in unnatural chemical 
substances and most of all in the artificial scrambling of genetic 
information.

	The potential dangers of these products to human health and 
the environment are well accepted by biologists around the world. It 
is largely only those who have direct or indirect corporate funding 
that are willing to ignore the high risks involved.

	Your new rules for regulating GE organisms and foods are a 
farce. If they are not overhauled to include real safety testing by 
independent laboratories and labeling of all products sold, whether 
seeds for planting or food constituents for human or animal 
consumption, I wager a year's pay that the day will come when people 
will compare our government with Hitler's, and the FDA with 
Auschwitz. Perish the thought!

	I am dead serious about this. If such a disaster is to be 
avoided, 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.
… 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.
… 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 producers liable should any of these novel products be hazardous.
… 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.

Thank you for waking up.

Kenneth G. Walton
1000 N 4th Street
Fairfield, IA 52557