From: patcatmom@hotmail.com
Sent: Wednesday, February 07, 2001 9:04 AM
To: fdadockets@oc.fda.gov
Cc: patcatmom@hotmail.com
Subject: Oppose FDA's New Regulations on Genetically Engineered Food

Patricia Shechter
75 Saint Alphonsus Street
Boston, MA  02120 
patcatmom@hotmail.com


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

Dear FDA,
 
I am very concerned about and upset 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 not at all helpful to consumers; moreover, it 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 especially concerned about potential health risks, as I have Celiac Disease (a/k/a Celiac Sprue, Gluten Intolerance Enteropathy) and must avoid any and all foods containing even microscopic amounts of gluten.  So little is still known about genetically engineered foods that my health could be severely impaired should a company modify a food with a gene from wheat, rye, barley, or oats, since no one knows whether the gluten in those grains could be transferred to the genetically modified food through the genetic modification of such a product.  For people with Celiac Disease, the notion that food that we eat could so endanger us without even our knowledge is deeply disturbing and frightening.

I also oppose your new "voluntary labeling" policy, which denies consumers a basic right to know. 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.  Again, this is clearly dangerous to people with Celiac Disease.

Your proposed rules are very troubling; they seem to ignore many serious concerns and appear to be a decision made to convenience industry at the expense of public health and the environment. I am very concerned that I and others will be made guinea pigs of these untested foods, and I hope and trust you will take my concern along with the thousands of others into serious consideration.

Sincerely,


Patricia Shechter