Mentmore, 19 September 1996

Today the Natural Law Party delivered a strong statement to the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) about the grave dangers of the current approach to genetic engineering of food.

The letter coincides both with Prince Charles’s address to the annual meeting of the Soil Association, in which he is expected to talk about the damaging effects of technological interventions in food supply, and the broadcast of the BBC programme "The Food Chain" about genetic engineering of food.

The Natural Law Party letter to MAFF is in response to MAFF’s answers to questions posed by constituents to their MPs. MAFF repeatedly puts forward the view that with current controls there is no danger from genetically engineered foods and that limited labelling is adequate for the purposes of consumer choice.

In contrast, the Natural Law Party is saying that the position of the ministry and of the biotechnology industry demonstrates a basic lack of understanding of the safety issues and is putting the public at risk. Experts who have no vested interest are saying that the industry is overlooking some of the basic principles of molecular genetics and the limitations of the technology as they try to meet technical and commercial objectives.

According to Dr Michael Antoniou, a senior lecturer in molecular pathology with his own genetics research team in London: ‘Both from a basic molecular genetics and a technical perspective, the proposition that genetic engineering is a natural extension of current breeding techniques is wrong. The general acceptance of this proposition is allowing the food industry to rush into a completely unknown area without sufficient testing and with potentially disastrous consequences for human health and the environment.

‘It would appear that governments and the plant biotech industry are glossing over the fact that inserting new genetic material into an organism creates an unpredictable situation,’ Dr Antoniou continued. ‘Scientific evidence is already available to show that it can lead to the creation of new toxins and allergens which current testing requirements may overlook. The new enzymatic protein products (that result from inserting new genetic material into an organism) could produce an immediate effect or it could take years for their toxicity to come to light.’

There is potentially an enormous danger here as the whole of humanity's food supply will be irrevocably altered by genetic engineering within the next few years if the biotech industry’s plans reach fruition.

The Natural Law Party is calling for:

– a complete reassessment of the risk and a moratorium on the introduction of genetically engineered foods;
– full toxicity testing (as with pharmaceutical chemicals);
– full labelling of all products which are genetically modified organisms (GMOs), or which contain processed GMOs, or are derived from production processes which use GMOs or their products;
– objective information to be made available to the public, instead of the current promotional literature issued by the government.

NOTE TO EDITORS: If you wish to do an in-depth report on this subject we have collated extensive information on it. Please also see our Internet site at: http://www.natural-law-party.org.uk, for copies of the Natural Law Party response to MAFF.