Genetically Altered Food

Re “Turn Down the Heat in the Food Feud,” editorial, Oct. 11: You have it all wrong. We should turn up the heat and get smart like the Europeans who won’t touch genetically engineered food because there is no long-term safety testing. Our government says it is quite safe because the biotech industry supposedly has done some testing. “Tried and tested,” you [quote] in your editorial. Who says it is “tried and tested”? Sounds like genetically engineered public relations from the biotech big boys.

My government should protect me and my family and not the biotech industry. It is an outrage that the government doesn’t require labeling on this fiddled food until it is proven innocent beyond a shadow of a doubt by solid, independent, long-term testing. In the meantime, I’ll stick with Mother Nature and organic food.

MARTIN ZUCKER

Los Angeles

* The issue of biotech food goes even beyond the vital considerations of food and environmental safety to a new sort of corporate totalitarianism. Many of us are just now beginning to realize that our food is being modified with genes from viruses and bacteria, and we are also realizing that we have had no help at all from our government in this matter.

People in other countries, especially in the Third World, recognize the authoritarian aspect of this attempt to take over the world food supply. They have had much more experience with overt tyranny than we have, and you can bet that Third World people are well aware of something that most Americans have yet to learn: Whoever controls the food controls the people.

GEORGE CUNREDDA

Berkeley