GE food labeling

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The Right Honourable Jean Chretien
Prime Minister
House of Commons
Ottawa, ON

Dear Prime Minister:

Refusing to label GE foods will further diminish public confidence in the regulatory agencies of the Canadian government, such as the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA).

Please do not fall for the industry scam on reversing the tables of the burden of proof of injury from GE foods on the users. It is the industry who has to prove the safety of GE foods and not the other way around. Lack of injury today is not proof of safety - waiting to see if GE foods will produce injuries before labeling or restricting GE foods is not acceptable. If Canada is supposed to be a free and democratic society Canadians should have the right to know what is in their food and decide what they want to eat.

Closed door meetings, and reducing the opportunity for public input is not the way to look after the public interest.The totally inadequate public notice period for public comment is telling on its own, is unacceptable and must be extended. On a matter of such great public concern, the minimum notice should display ads in all the daily newspapers. Information about what is being sold as food is not a matter simply for pro-biotech experts. A new 60-day public comment period should be started after adequate public notice has been given.

The main test so-called bio-tech experts use to determine if a GE food will cause an allergy response is based on a false premise that every body makes sufficient enough hydrochloric acid in their stomach to hydrolyze the foreign GM protein and render it inert. It is known that 30 percent of the senior citizen population do not make hydrochloric acid. Three year old infants have been shown to lack hydrochloric acid in their stomach. Recent studies from the University of Vienna, Austria (Vancouver Sun, Sept, 10/03), confirm use of acid blockers causes allergies The widespread use of ant-acids and acid suppressors so heavily advertised can only serve to put more people at risk.

The government must support Bill C-287, which calls for mandatory labelling. This Bill is due to come before the House of Commons in early October for a vote to send it to committee for public hearings. I urge you to vote for the bill to go to the committee.

Yours sincerely, Croft Woodruff
6262 A Fraser Street
Vancouver, BC V5W 3A1
504 327 3889

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