FDA re-opens probe into benzene contamination of soft drinks
 

15/02/2006 - US food safety authorities have re-opened

an investigation closed 15 years ago into soft drinks

contaminated with cancer-causing chemical benzene,

following evidence the industry has failed to sort out

the problem, BeverageDaily.com can reveal.
 

A chemist at the Food And Drug Administration (FDA) said

testing in recent weeks had revealed some soft drinks contaminated

with benzene at levels above the legal limit for water set by the US

and Europe.

 

Benzene is listed as a poisonous chemical shown to increase the risk of

leukaemia and other cancers.

 

The FDA was originally alerted in 1990 to the problem of benzene in soft

drinks triggered by the preservative sodium benzoate. It never made the

findings public, but came to an arrangement with the US soft drinks association

that the industry would “get the word out”.

 

But in recent months, internal documents and private tests have begun to surface,

supported by claims from a former chemist for Cadbury Schweppes, who is now

keen to blow the whistle on the health risk involved. He and a US lawyer

commissioned new tests that have now prompted the FDA to re-open the case.

These independent tests, performed by a laboratory in New York, found benzene

levels in a couple of soft drinks two-and-a-half-times and five times above the

World Health Organisation limit for drinking water (10 parts per billion).

 

The FDA now confirms it has found a similar problem in its own follow-up testing.

“There were a few isolated products that have elevated levels. We certainly want

to make sure there is some reformulation,” said an FDA chemist.

 

The problem is caused by two common ingredients – sodium benzoate and ascorbic

acid (vitamin C) – which can react together to cause benzene formation. It is considered

completely separate from other outbreaks of benzene contamination due to faulty

packaging in the 1990s.

 

The two ingredients are still used together in a wide range of soft drinks across the world.

 

The FDA was first alerted to the problem in December 1990 by Cadbury Schweppes and

Australian drinks group Koala Springs, according to an internal FDA memo.

This prompted FDA testing that led the US Department of Health and Human Services

to report, again in an internal memo: “Benzene formation occurs at part per billion (ppb)

levels in some food formulations containing sodium benzoate and ascorbic acid [vitamin C].”

 

 For more information visit the following website:

 

http://www.foodanddrinkeurope.com/news/ng.asp?id=65840-soft-drinks-fda-benzene

 

 

 

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P A N U P S

Pesticide Action Network Updates Service

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Pesticide Residues a Major Threat to China's Ag Exports

January 17, 2003

As producer of one third of the world's vegetable exports, China was

expected to vastly expand its markets once it entered the World Trade

Organization in December 2001. However, the exceedingly high levels of

pesticide residues in Chinese food products may pose significant problems

for international sales, especially in Europe, Japan and the U.S., where

food safety standards are more stringent and more strictly enforced. For

example, in 2001, new European Union (EU) regulations reduced pesticide

tolerances for tea by 100 times, effectively excluding half of China's tea

exports to the EU. This rejection caused more than $125 million in losses to

farmers in Zhejiang Province.

Several reports in the past year illustrate the magnitude of pesticide

residues in vegetables grown in China:

**Experts in Yunnan province found that residues of two highly toxic

pesticides--banned by the government for use in vegetable production--were

present in 34% to 100% of vegetable samples taken in Kunming and Baoshan

prefectures from 1994 to 200l.

**In 2001, the Chinese government found 47% of domestically produced

vegetables had pesticide residues in excess of government standards.

**The Japanese Ministry of Health found pesticide residues in some

vegetables imported from China that were four times higher than the

agreed-upon limits.

Pesticide production in China is also on the rise. In 2001, production rose

by 9% to 696,400 tons, more than three times the 1995 total. This growth

occurred in spite of the government's plans to cut pesticide production by

2005. Product quality control and distribution are also problematic. As much

as 40% of pesticides on the market in China are sold under false brand

names, and in Yunnan province, a 2002 study for the Global Greengrants Fund

revealed that at least half of pesticide distributors are not legally

registered or licensed.

Figures of pesticide poisonings in China are disturbingly high and are

probably underestimated. The Chinese government estimates that each year

53,300 to 123,000 people are made ill from pesticides, and 300 to 500

farmers die from pesticide exposure. Localized studies have shown much

higher poisoning rates. More than 20% of farming households reported some

pesticide poisoning in their homes in a 2001 survey of two small

agricultural communities in rural Sichuan conducted by PANNA and the Kunming

Center for Community Development. Medical studies of rice farmers in

Zhejiang found pesticide poisoning in the liver (22%), in the kidneys (23%),

and nerves (6%) of farmers, and also found a relationship between degree of

liver function abnormality and amount of pesticide used. Other experts

report that more than 100 farmers die of pesticide poisoning each year in

Yunnan Province alone.

Consumers who may eat contaminated fruits and vegetables are also at risk

for pesticide poisoning, and this type of poisoning may also be fatal.

Xinping County Hospital in Yunnan province reported 53 such deaths in the

year 2000. Direct consumption of pesticides is still a common method of

deliberate poisoning and suicide in China, as in the case reported in 2002,

of a snack shop owner who admitted to poisoning his competitor's customers

by putting rat poison in their breakfasts.

Sources:

Agrow: World Crop Protection News, February 15, 2002 and December 14, 2001;

Farm Pesticide, Rice Production, and Human Health, Center for Chinese

Agricultural Policy, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences,

http://www.eepsea.org/publications/research1/ACF268.html; Pesticides in

China: A Growing Threat to Food Safety, Public Health, and the Environment

2002, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, China Environment

Series, Issue 5,

http://www.ecsp.si.edu/index.cfm?topic_id=1413&fuseaction=topics.publication

s&group_id=6935; Report on Establishing Systems for Controlling Pesticide

Residues in Vegetables, 2001, Kunming: Yunnan Entomological Society; San

Francisco Chronicle, September 18, 2002.