From: Center for Food Safety [action@foodsafetynow.org]
Sent: Friday, January 19, 2001 10:08 AM
To: FDA Commissioner
Cc: president@whitehouse.gov; vice.president@whitehouse.gov;
fdadockets@oc.fda.gov; fdadockets@oc.fda.gov
Subject: Oppose the New FDA Regulations on GE Foods!

FDA Commissioner Jane Henney
Dockets Management Branch (HFA 305)
Food and Drug Administration
5630 Fisher's Lane, rm. 1061
Rockville, MD 20852

RE: Docket No. 00N-1396, and 00D-1598

Dear Ms. Henney,
 
I am outraged by your new policies on genetically engineered (GE) foods. 
 Despite overwhelming consumer demand, your agency still fails to require 
safety testing and mandatory labeling for GE foods. Your “notification” 
policy is an insult to consumers, and irresponsibly ignores strong 
scientific evidence of numerous potential health and environmental risks 
to GE foods. These foods could be toxic, could cause allergic responses, 
could have lower nutritional value, could compromise immune responses in 
consumers, and could cause irreparable damage to the environment. Even 
without these risks, we, the public, have a right to know about each and 
every ingredient present in the food that we purchase. Why should anyone 
else have control over what we eat?

I am also greatly opposed to your new “voluntary labeling” policy. 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 will also be deprived of the critical knowledge 
they need to hold food producers liable should any of these novel foods 
prove hazardous.

Your proposed rules ignore serious concerns, and appear to be a decision 
made to convenience industry at the expense of public health and the 
environment. Once again it is a case of allowing those with money and 
power to accumulate more wealth at the expense of the rest of us. 

I WILL NOT ACCEPT YOUR ATTEMPT TO MAKE ME A GUINEA PIG of these untested 
foods, and I trust you will take my concern along with the thousands of 
others into serious consideration.


Sincerely,
Leigh Nowicki


Leigh Nowicki
34 Harrison St.
Bristol, CT, 06010

CC: 
The President
Vice President Dick Cheney
FDA Dockets Management [Docket No. 00N-1396]
Senator Christopher J. Dodd
Senator Joseph I. Lieberman
Representative Nancy L. JohnsonFDA Dockets Management [Docket No. 00D-1598]


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