GM Tomatoes: The Story of the Flvr Svr Tomato

GM tomatoes were the first GM-crop produced for market and the first to be withdrawn. Genetically modified tomatoes are tomatoes that are grown by taking the seeds and manipulating the seeds to make a “better” tomato.

The GM tomatoes were grown in America by the California Company Calgene (1); however, they were developed in the UK at Nottingham University in cooperation with Zeneca Seeds (2). J. Sainsbury and Safeway stores introduced the new tomato in the United Kingdom in February of 1996 (2). When the tomato was first introduced, the producers encouraged publicity (2), naming it the “flavr savr tomato” (3). Sales of the tomato were brisk when it was first brought out. The reactions of the people were mixed: some people really liked the tomatoes and other people thought they were toxic and unsafe. To this day no harm has come to humans who have eaten any genetically modified organisms (4).

Some of the benefits to this technology were that the GM tomatoes were perfectly ripened when the consumers bought them from the store (5). The genetic code of the tomato was changed so that the tomato could stay on the vine longer and still not rot (5). Researchers could control the “rin” (5) gene which made for a better tasting, less bland tomato that the consumers liked. Scientists claimed that this new tomato could help have important health benefits: fight off cancer. “Tomatoes genetically modified to contain three times the usual amount of vitamin A producing compounds can help stave off cancer and heart disease” (6). Another way producers could sell the product to the farmers was by telling them that this new product was good for their fields: they said it would be less harsh on their fields and that, based on studies; the salinity of the soil would go down. Even if the “flavr savr tomato” (3) was planted in a saline field, the tomato was not affected because the salt was collected and put into the leaves, not into the tomato itself making it still a perfect tomato.

• Despite these advantages there were quite a few drawbacks to the tomato:
  
• A lot of the consumers thought of this new tomato as a “Frankenfood” (7), meaning a food that was tampered with and was not made naturally.
  
• Consumers also did not believe that this tomato was safe to eat. Many people did not think that the guidelines of testing were high enough to make sure that this tomato was safe to eat, even though the health hazards to the genetically modified tomato were minimal (7).
  
• Researchers were getting feedback that the tomato was not thought through well enough for it to be on the market.
  
• Researchers also discovered that the GM tomato was not as healthy as the regular tomato.

The “flavr savr tomato” (3) is considered to be a safe alternative to the regular tomato. It is said that it offers more vitamin A to help fight disease; however, “the fact that no harm has been established is not the same as proving that GMOs pose no dangers” (4). What started as the new craze when the product first came out died out fast when people started second guessing the safety of the crop. Today this food producer is not allowed in super markets across America because people just did not want it. However, that does not stop scientists from trying to better their product and from producing more GM crops. This tomato was the first GM crop produced and it does have its benefits to farmers, but to this day the drawbacks to this crop are just too high.

References:
(1) Pusztai, Arpad. “GM foods: Are they a risk to human/ animal health?”
http://www.actionbioscience.org/ biotech/pusztai.html. June 2001.
(2) “That was the food that was?” National Centre for Biotechnology Education.
http://www.ncbe.reading.ac.uk/NCBE/GMFOOD/menu.html.
(3) Dresbach, Sereana; Flax, Holly; Sokolowski, Amanda; Allred, John.
“The impact of genetically modified organisms on human health.”
Ohio State University. http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/5000/5058.html.
(4) Bindloss, Elizabeth. “A developmental analysis of cell length as related to stem length.”
American Journal of Botany 10. Jstor. 25 Nov. 2006
(5) “Building Better Tomatoes.” River Deep.
http://www.riverdeep.net/current/2002/04/042902t_gmfoods.jhtml. April 29, 2002.
(6) Bramley, Peter. “GM Tomatoes ‘fight cancer’.” BBC News.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/769507.stm. May 30, 2000
(7) Schulman, Miriam. “Attack of the killer tomatoes?” Santa Clara University.
http://www.scu.edu/ethics/ publications/submitted/schulman/tomatoes.html.

December 2006