From: mikeeden@edenfoods.com
Sent: Thursday, February 15, 2001 2:43 PM
To: fdadockets@oc.fda.gov
Subject: What's in your food? (FDA Dockets 00N-1396 and 00D-1598)


Dear Corporate and Government Leaders,

Genetically engineered food ingredients or crops should not be allowed on the market until: 

1) Independent safety testing demonstrates they have no harmful effects on human health or the environment, 

2) They are labeled to ensure the consumer's right-to-know, and 

3) The biotechnology corporations that manufacture them are held responsible for any harm.

	Quoting the September 1912 issue of the ‘National Food 
Magazine’ in an article titled Theodore Roosevelt and Pure 
Foods, it reads “... By his activity in this fight he brought 
down on his head the lasting hatred of all the food 
adulterators in America. Until this day no name is more 
abhorrent to them than that of Theodore Roosevelt. And that 
organization of food adulterators is one of the most powerful 
political influences the country has ever had to deal with. It 
has openly defied the national and state governments for a 
quarter of a century. The enormous profits it realizes from 
the processes of imitation and adulteration permit it to have 
a mighty barrel to spend in influencing legislation. ...” The 
more things change, the more they stay the same.
	Today we face a more permanent adulteration of our food, 
the pollution of our food gene pool by giant corporations who 
‘own’ the DNA and are only interested in profit. This affront to 
organic agriculture and enormous burden on companies like 
Eden Foods to acquire non genetically polluted organic food, 
is the most serious threat to the freedom of humanity from 
corporate exploitation ever. It strikes me as ironic that food 
is genetically engineered to allow the killing of all life in the 
soil with toxic herbicides, when the inherent nature of 
anything considered food is to nurture life.
	These same corporations are, today, actively working to 
acquire ownership of all the fresh water in India and Mexico, 
with plans for owning all fresh water.
	Nature created perfect food. It is arrogant to think that a 
scientist can make food better by manipulating DNA. It is far 
more likely that this tampering will limit the expression of the 
genetic potentialities of life. Recklessly releasing man made, 
untested organisms into our environment may lead to 
surprising, devastating results, and has already caused 
severe economic damage.
	Genetic science is not itself bad. It has potential for creating 
new silver bullet medicines of value. Tampering with the DNA 
in our food is another thing, and the vast majority of people 
on Earth do not want it done.
	I have stood on huge tracts of dead soil, all life choked out 
of it by agricultural chemicals made by these same 
corporations. For Nature to repair this requires thousands of 
years; but, we are “the salt of the Earth,” and the magic of 
man is that we can repair this damage using organic 
techniques in three to five years. What power we have to 
nurture life, or kill, if we do not act wisely and prevent further 
processes of imitation and adulteration of food.

				Michael Potter                                    15 February 2001



Sincerely

Michael Potter
701 Tecumseh Road
Clinton, Michigan 49236