Reuters | October 11, 1999
BRUSSELS - The European Union's top scientific advisers were cited as saying on Monday that a genetically modified tomato developed by Anglo-Swedish life sciences company AstraZeneca Plc was safe to be marketed throughout the EU.
But, the story adds, the opinion from the EU's scientific committee for food is no guarantee the tomato will win marketing approval in the 15 member bloc. No new genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have been approved by EU governments for 18 months, amid growing consumer suspicion of the technology.
The European Commission was cited as saying in an explanatory statement that the committee, made up of independent food safety experts, concluded that "from the consumer health point of view, processed foods derived from these tomatoes are as safe as products from conventional foods."
Its advice will be forwarded to the Commission, the EU's executive, which must then ask EU governments to vote whether or not to authorise the tomato for general release. An EU official was quoted as telling Reuters that, "There is no definite timescale and bear in mind that no GM foods have been approved in the EU since April 1998."
The Union has operated a de facto moratorium on new GM foods for the last 18 months, as a series of food scares have undermined public confidence in foods produced from modified crops.
The new tomato was originally developed by Zeneca, which merged in April this year with Astra AB to form AstraZeneca. It has been developed solely for processing and when ripe softens more slowly than conventional tomatoes.
The scientists concluded that the heat treatment used to process the tomato "biologically inactivates the modified genes and their protein products," the Commission statement said.
