From: DNA113@aol.com
Sent: Sunday, April 01, 2001 12:20 AM
To: fdadockets@oc.fda.gov
Subject: Docket 00N-1396 & Docket 00D-1598

Dear FDA folks:
I can't say this enough:
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.'  (well I can understand that it all comes 
down to big business...)

    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.  I am a vegetarian, and I don't want to eat vegetables poisoned with 
dead animal genes.  How dare the FDA decide that I don't need to know what is 
in the food I eat. 

In my opinion 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.

sincerely,
Dena C. WIener