From: Center for Food Safety [action@foodsafetynow.org]
Sent: Friday, February 02, 2001 6:52 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 
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 FDA,
 
I am thoroughly 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. You should be aware that these foods could be toxic, 
could cause allergic responses, could have lower nutrition value, could 
compromise immune responses in consumers, and could cause irreparable 
damage to the environment. 

I am a former produce manager at a natural foods grocery store.  ALL of my 
customers are vitally concerned with full disclosure of the contents of 
their food, especially with regards to genetically modified organisms. 
Your new “voluntary labeling” policy, which denies consumers a basic right 
to know, is absurd. Without mandatory labeling, it will make the job of 
buying that much more difficult for a responsible food buyer, receptive to 
customer demand.

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. I will not accept your attempt to make the public guinea pigs 
of these untested foods, and I trust you will take my concern along with 
the thousands of others into serious consideration.


Sincerely,

-Benjamin S. Wallace


Benjamin Wallace
1818 Glendale Avenue
Durham, NC, 27701

CC: 
The President
Vice President Dick Cheney
FDA Dockets Management [Docket No. 00N-1396]
Senator Jesse Helms
Senator John Edwards
Representative David E. PriceFDA Dockets Management [Docket No. 00D-1598]


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