From: Michael Bacso [michael@get-a-massage.com]
Sent: Sunday, April 01, 2001 10:27 PM
To: fdadockets@oc.fda.gov
Subject: Docket 00N-1396 & Docket 00D-1598

To the FDA:


GENETICALLY ENGINEERED PRODUCTS MUST BE LABELED!

    I can't understand why, despite overwhelming consumer demand, the FDA
has failed to require ecological safety testing or mandatory labeling of
genetically engineered 'foods.'
    You are putting our health and our environment at risk and you are
depriving American citizens of the right to know or choose what we are
eating. 

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 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.

*end your relationship with the industries you purport 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.  According to my sources, Ninety-two percent of FDA
advisory committee meetings had at least one conflict of interest.  How can
you operate this way?  Have you no moral conscience?  We are talking about
the health and safety of our one and only planet, and the children that
inhabit it.

thank you,

michael bacso