You say tomato, we say GM food

We don't usually pass on news of a purely scientific nature in Labnotes, but a press release from BASF is too good to miss. With the title "Genetically enhanced flavonoid tomatoes could reduce cardiovascular disease," it tells us that "Tomatoes, genetically modified to contain a higher level of flavonoids, have in a recent study shown to substantially reduce a protein, the so-called C-reactive protein (CRP), in mice." It then says that CRP is "associated with a higher risk of heart and vascular diseases as well as type-2 diabetes".

 

Why is this interesting? Because a genetically modified tomato played a part in the early outbreak of lunacy on genetically modified (GM) foods. The agricultural bit of Zeneca, the life sciences offshoot from that once great chemicals company ICI, created the seeds for the crops that ended up in tins of puree made from GM tomatoes.

 

 

 

And then the lunacy started. GM food because the devil's plaything and is now hounded out of anywhere and everywhere, most recently from rice shipments shipped into Europe from the USA.

 

One lesson from the whole GM saga is that you don't try selling this sort of stuff to people just because it is there. You have to offer some real benefits.

 

In the case of Zeneca's tomatoes, sold in the UK by Safeway, the benefits really accrued to the growers. It was something to do with not going squishy too early, a benefit to processors rather than eaters.  But in the eyes of the anti science extremists, even that was probably better than just growing something that you could survive a sustained bout of chemical warfare to eliminate nasty weeds.

 

You can't accuse BASF of this. The new tomato may well offer some real consumer benefits. It could be interesting to watch the various bands of health and environment activists fighting at the barricades on this one.