From: Judith White [ocean@ffpop.kdsi.net]
Sent: Monday, March 26, 2001 6:21 AM
To: fdadockets@oc.fda.gov
Subject: "Docket 00N-1396 & Docket 00D-1598" Genetic Engineering--will it make us unwilling cannibals?

Dear Friends,


Enclosed is a copy of an e-mail I sent to the National Right to Life Organization. 


Probably you know that the FDA is going to be ruling about Genetically Engineered products at the beginning of April.  There are many dangers that their proposed rulings will open to our world. 


One that strikes me deeply is that there is no protection for consumers in the guidelines that would prevent a company using human genes in a food item.  If they did that and marketed the food item we could become cannibals without knowing it.


Right now they are taking responses from the public.  I enclose an e-mail describing their proposed rules and including addresses and an e-mail address to use to send your comments.






    
    
                TELL THE FDA THAT GENETICALLY ENGINEERED PRODUCTS
                MUST BE LABELED AND TESTED FOR SAFETY!
                
                The Food and Drug Administration is now accepting public
                comment on its proposed new rules on genetically engineered
                (GE) foods.  Despite overwhelming consumer demand, the FDA
                has failed to require health and ecological safety testing
                or mandatory labeling, and thus puts your health and our
                environment at risk and deprives you of the right to know
                or choose what you are eating.
                
                
                The proposed rules they are in danger of implementing are:
                
                * Do not require mandatory pre-market safety testing
                * Do not require pre-market environmental review
                * Do not require mandatory labeling of GE foods
                * Restrict voluntary labeling of non-GE foods
                * Require a mere letter of notification prior to the
                 marketing of a GE food
                * Fail to ensure public access to adequate information
                 for independent review
                * Are supported by industry and opposed by consumer groups
                
                The FDA needs to hear from hundreds of thousands of Americans
                that:
                
                * 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.
                
                PLEASE ACT TODAY. THE DEADLINE FOR COMMENTS IS TUESDAY, APRIL 3.
                
                
                Email your comments to: fdadockets@oc.fda.gov
                 with "Docket 00N-1396 & Docket 00D-1598" in the Subject line
                
                
                Mail your comments to:
                  Docket 00N-1396 & Docket 00D-1598
                  Dockets Management Branch (HFA-305)
                  Food and Drug Administration
                  5630 Fishers Lane, Room 1061
                  Rockville, MD 20852
                
                For more information: www.organicconsumers.org , 218-226-4164
                
                ***
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