Who is winning the GMO (genetically modified organism) vs the expanding world economy propaganda war? A recent law passed in Australasia will require any food containing 0.1 per cent or more of GMO to be labeled as such by January 2003. Although anti-GMO advocates have tended to herald this law as a victory, one needn’t wonder how the multinational food corporations, with endlessly resourceful spin machines, will respond. Surely they will use their seemingly limitless marketing capital to convince an unsuspecting worldwide public that all genetically modified foods are safer, cheaper, disease-thwarting, crop-increasing and more nutritious, i.e. “better for the national economy” and hence your salary! The corporate spin machine is likely to convince the masses that the ‘old fashioned’ ways of farming, that for centuries have produced predictable yields, could have caused bubonic plague and other diseases that resulted in mass destruction. Who knows what bacteria people in days of old might have been prey to — in the days before antibiotics were discovered? Antibiotics that have saved millions of lives. Ironically, billions of tons of these same antibiotics are now fed daily to cattle eaten by humans, thus creating immunity in those who consume them. So when antibiotics such as penicillin, and amphicillin are actually needed their effect is weakened, or even nullified. The TV watching, newspaper gobbling, billboard gazing, radio listening public is sure to give the nod to corporate messages glorifying genetically modified foods. Labels will say the packages contain genetically modified foods, and the public will pay the price, believing that it is better for them and their families. Even today many shoppers tend to avoid “old fashioned,” “disease-ridden,” “ugly,” misshapen, unevenly colored and sized, organic vegetables and fruits. But what kind of bacteria might seep into genetically modified foods? What were the dangers of nuclear power plants, DDT and thalidomide? The public didn’t discover these dangers until it was “too late,” and tragedy had already struck. Today nuclear energy plants aren’t built, DDT isn’t used to spray crops, and thalidomide is no longer manufactured. Why? Because these substances have been proven dangerous to human life. These are some of the reasons why Krishna consciousness is sometimes described as a more “natural way of life” and why Srila Prabhupada stressed self-sufficiency as a goal of the Hare Krishna movement. Point six in Srila Prabhupada’s original “seven purposes” of ISKCON reads, “To bring the members closer together for the purpose of teaching a simpler and more natural way of life.”