From: Center for Food Safety [action@foodsafetynow.org]
Sent: Friday, February 09, 2001 4:24 PM
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,
 
Please allow me to express my dissatisfaction with the new “voluntary 
 labeling” policy regarding genetically engineered foods.  Manufacturers 
will be unlikely to voluntarily label their products in such a way as may 
compromise thier sales, therefore there will be no way to know if an 
unlabeled food has been subject to genetic modification.  It may be that 
there are no health risks involved in genetically tinkering with our food, 
but I believe that it should be a consumer's choice whether or not to 
participate in such an experiment.  Without mandatory labeling, neither 
consumers nor health professionals will be able to know if an allergic or 
toxic reaction was the result of an untested genetic modification of their 
food.

It is important to recognize that at this time we simply have no way of 
knowing if genetic modification is truly harmless and beneficial.  When 
modern chemical pesticides were first introduced, they also appeared to be 
harmless to humans; only time revealed their ability to collect in the 
human body and create cancer and toxicity.

It saddens me to say it, but the proposed rules appear to me to be a 
decision made solely to convenience industry.  It is public health and our 
precious environment which will pay the price in the event that our 
greed-motivated experimentation proves dangerous.  I hope that the 
government will recognize its role as protector of the people's right to 
choose, and make the fair decision in this very important matter.

Thank you for listening.

Sincerely,

Ratha Grimes

ratha@grimes.net
21 Kay Street, Apt. 1
Newport, RI 02840


Ratha Grimes
21 Kay Street, Apt. 1
Newport, RI, 02840

CC: 
The President
Vice President Dick Cheney
FDA Dockets Management [Docket No. 00N-1396]
Senator Jack Reed
Senator Lincoln D. Chafee
Representative Patrick J. KennedyFDA Dockets Management [Docket No. 
00D-1598]


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