From: Center for Food Safety [action@foodsafetynow.org]
Sent: Monday, January 22, 2001 6:17 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 Jane Henney
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 Ms. Henney,
 
I am alarmed by the failure of our representatives in government to protect 
 the citizens of our country from the many hazards of allowing the huge 
chemical companies to continue their plans to own all of the food supply 
for the world. I am concerned, not only of the potential health hazards 
and ecological disaster that are inherent in genetically engineered foods, 
but about the economic and therefore polictical implications of the way 
these big companies are going about buying up all avenues for reistance to 
their plan to engineer every possible source of food. 

They are not doing this to be nice guys and help out the poor people in 
developing countries.

Despite overwhelming consumer demand, your agency still fails to require 
even safety testing prior to marketing these foods. 

Every decision made to favor the economic benefit of these large companies 
is a decision against freedom and safety. When the motivations are 
economic benefit for a few powerful people at the cost of the personal 
safety and freedom of a large segment of the population (in this case, the 
rest of the world's population), the implications for political freedom 
are obvious. 

Whatever benefit there may be today to your agency to support these large, 
economically powerful and morally indifferent companies to the detriment 
of the public's interests may not be in your long-term benefit. These 
corporate heads are definitely looking ahead to their long-term goal, and 
it is not altruistic. It is not for your personal good. Don't be 
short-sighted. 

The chemical companies producing these foods are aware of the risks to 
people and to the environment, but they are willing to risk the health of 
the world's population and of the world's ecology in order to own the 
world's food supply. 

There are natural and inexpensive ways to increase crop yield that are 
highly effective. The claims of chemical companies that genetically 
modified foods are less expensive to grow or are more resistant to pests 
than naturally grown foods are not upheld by the facts. Facts indicate 
that, in fact, genetically modified foods are more expensive to grow and 
are subject to more pests than natural crops. The advantage of these crops 
is soley an economic one and that benefit is only for the owners of the 
big companies getting the patents on food. 

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. 

What humanistic values do you imagine are being upheld by denying 
consumers the ability to know what is in the food they are being sold, and 
by denying farmers the right to keep natural seeds from their own crop by 
exposing natural foods to genetically modified pollen, thereby modifying 
the crops of farmers who are doing all they can to maintain natural 
methods of growing and propagating food? 

The collaboration of agencies (which must be receiving some immediate 
financial benefit) with these big companies is an outrage that could bring 
far worse results than the immediate benefits are worth.

Your proposed rules ignore serious concerns, and appear to be a decision 
made to convenience wealthy industry-owners at the expense of public 
health, the environment and possibly the future of freedom in the world. I 
dol not accept the alleged altruistic motives of genetic engineering for 
food, nor do I accept the "no-difference" statements of the agencies 
designed to protect consumers from the self-serving interests of 
corporations who could make money from the sale of hazardous goods. 

Please take my concern along with the concern of thousands of others into 
serious consideration.

Sincerely,

Kathy Jaffey

Kathy Jaffey
1000 N. 4th St 236
Fairfield, IA, 52557

CC: 
The President
Vice President Dick Cheney
FDA Dockets Management [Docket No. 00N-1396]
Senator Charles E. Grassley
Senator Tom Harkin
Representative Leonard L. BoswellFDA Dockets Management [Docket No. 
00D-1598]

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