New video tape on GM food on general release throughout the UK Complimentary copies available to the press

"Genetically engineered foods - experts present the serious risks and the natural solutions"

2 March 1999

The Natural Law Party is adding a new dimension to the debate over GM foods by releasing a videotape designed to present the real scientific and environmental issues surrounding this vitally important topic. The videotape is a 30-minute abridged version of a special conference sponsored by the Natural Law Party.

The expert speakers on the videotape not only discuss the dangers of GM food, but also offer natural solutions and alternatives. The viewer is left in no doubt that GM foods are an unnecessary and pointless experiment, and that they are not a way of solving the world's nutritional problems.

Summary of contents of videotape

Genetics scientist Dr Michael Antoniou, one of Britain's most outspoken scientists on the dangers of GM food, explains that genetic engineering is a very crude and imprecise process fraught with enormous risks. He emphasises that it is completely different to traditional crossbreeding since it involves the transfer of genetic material between totally unrelated organisms. "If Nature has spent millions of years building a structure with natural boundaries, it must be there for a purpose," he said. "It is there to guide the evolution of life and to maintain its integrity. Using genetic engineering in agriculture is like trying to fix something that has nothing wrong with it in the first place."

Dr Geoffrey Clements, UK leader of the Natural Law Party and a physicist, said that genetic engineering disrupts the sequential flow of Nature's intelligence within an organism that maintains its health, vitality, and balance with the environment. "It is totally irresponsible for anyone to claim that there is either precision in the technology or precision in predicting whatever the results might be," Dr Clements said. "When scientists start manipulating in this indeterminate way the universal intelligence at the basis of all life, then we have to be in the right to raise alarm bells about it."

Craig Sams, Chairman of Whole Earth Foods, one of the first health food companies to take a stand against GM foods, talks about the human rights issues involved, the need for consumer choice, and tells the public what they can do to reverse the introduction of GM foods. "Genetic engineering isn't about feeding the world, it's about making sure the world buys its food from the same handful of multinational agrochemical companies."

Dr Reinhard Borowitz, Secretary General of the Maharishi International Council of Natural Law Parties, pointed out that the introduction of the genetically modified foods could be called genetic warfare - "an action taken by a few people to spoil the food of all mankind, not just now but for all generations to come." He said that the Natural Law Party is campaigning for a ban on genetically engineered foods in 80 countries. The most crucial aspect of this campaign is to promote programmes to create a more positive, integrated collective consciousness. "The best way to safeguard our future is to apply Maharishi's Vedic Technologies of consciousness to eliminate dullness in society and bring life everywhere spontaneously in alliance with Natural Law."

Concluding the discussion, Patrick Holden, Director of the Soil Association, the organisation that upholds organic standards in the UK, said: "After 50 years of industrialisation of agriculture, it is now the primary responsibility of every farmer to base the way in which they produce food on the principle of promotion of health rather than suppression of disease." He pointed out that natural organic agriculture can achieve amazing yields. "There is overwhelming public opposition to genetically engineered foods," he said. "Once people know about the issues they are instinctively deeply opposed to it. The Soil Association is committed to a moratorium, followed by a ban. When this is done in the UK it will send ripples right around the planet."

The Natural Law Party was the first political party to take a firm stand on this issue and call for a complete ban on genetically engineered foods (June 1996) because of the unacceptable high level of risk for human health and the environment.

This videotape will be on sale in health food shops, video outlets, via the internet and by mail order from the Natural Law Party.

Members of the press are invited to contact us for a complimentary copy of the video tape for review.

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