benzene/ Hard on Soft Drinks

http://www.alternet.org/story/33380/
Hard Times for Soft Drinks
By Michael Blanding, AlterNet. Posted March 13, 2006.

Soda has already been linked with weight gain and cavities; now the FDA
admits that some popular soft drinks could contain a carcinogen. Will
the fizz finally go flat?

More stories by Michael Blanding

It could be nearing high noon for the soda industry. After years of
repeated battering over the issues of childhood obesity and tooth
decay, sugary beverages have suffered an unprecedented backlash. The
New York Times reported last week that soft drink sales are down for
the first time in 20 years, and sales of bottled water, juices and
energy drinks are continuing to eat into the soda market.

Into this anti-carbonated climate comes a potentially bigger bombshell
that could spell disaster for the industry. Last month, the FDA quietly
revealed that some soft drinks were found to contain the human
carcinogen benzene in levels up to 10-20 parts per billion (ppb) --
four times the acceptable limit found in drinking water. Benzene, a
chemical linked to leukemia and other forms of cancer, forms in certain
beverages under certain conditions, such as exposure to heat and light.

The agency immediately downplayed the risk, saying that such small
amounts did not pose a significant danger to health. "Levels like that
with benzene, our only concern would be lifetime consumption," says
George Pauli, associate director of science and policy in the office of
food additive safety.

While scientists and doctors disagree on how hazardous benzene is to
human health, the Environmental Protection Agency requires public
notification and alternative water supply for drinking water
contaminated with levels of 5 ppb. Even "relatively short periods" of
exposure at that level can "potentially cause ... temporary nervous
system disorders, immune system depression [and] anemia," according to
the agency. A lifetime of exposure, says the EPA, can cause "chromosome
aberrations [and] cancer."

The FDA has not set an acceptable level of benzene for beverages,
arguing that the public consumes soft drinks and other beverages in far
lower amounts than they do drinking water -- a contention that any
parent of a teenager might find laughable. Younger children may have
already had a lifetime of benzene consumption.

Almost as alarming as the existence of benzene in soft drinks is that
the FDA knew about the problem for more than 15 years, yet never
revealed it to the public or took adequate measures to fix it. Even the
latest round of tests would not have been conducted if it weren't for
documents posted on the internet late last year by an industry
whistleblower named Larry Alibrandi. Those papers concern an
undisclosed study at Cadbury-Schweppes in 1990 called Project Denver,
which found that certain soft drinks, particularly diet orange-flavored
sodas, had the tendency to form benzene when exposed to heat and light.

While the industry contends the problem was corrected in the most
popular sodas, no public recall was done at the time. Judging from
their ingredients, dozens of products now on the shelves could
potentially have the same problem, including such popular brands as
Sunny Delight, flavored Diet Pepsi and Fanta Orange. (The Environmental
Working Group has posted a partial list of possibly risky products.)

"The question is, how much does this problem still exist today?" says
Alibrandi, who is now head of American Quality Beverages, a small New
York producer of health drinks. "We have hundreds of examples from the
trade, and many of them could potentially be a problem. What's
especially disconcerting is the products engineered for children, where
it's a potentially bigger problem for them since their body mass is
very small."

No recall

In November 1990, Alibrandi was working in product development at the
Connecticut labs of the British company Cadbury-Schweppes, when he says
he was called into his supervisor's office one morning. "He closed the
door and had a very, very concerned look on his face," recounts
Alibrandi. "He said that a carcinogen was found in beverages, and they
were concerned because they didn't know what the source was." That same
day, Alibrandi booked a flight to Florida to test samples in a special
lab capable of exposing them to extremes of heat and light.

After several trials, Cadbury-Schweppes' chemists determined that the
benzene was caused by a chemical reaction between the preservative
sodium benzoate and ascorbic acid (Vitamin C). The effect was found to
be especially prevalent in diet sodas, and shot up to even higher
levels after products were subjected to extremes of heat and light.
According to the documents, Cadbury-Schweppes' Diet Crush was found to
contain benzene at 25 parts per billion (ppb) -- five times the
acceptable EPA limit. After exposure to 16 hours of ultraviolet light
at temperatures around 30 C (86 F), that level jumped to a whopping 82
ppb. Diet Slice (made by Pepsi) contained 1 ppb before exposure, and
41.5 ppb after exposure. Diet Minute Maid (made by Coca-Cola) contained
less than 0.5 ppb before exposure and 4.5 ppb afterwards, the documents
say.

Despite the comparatively high levels found in these cases, however,
the products tested in Project Denver were never recalled. By law, the
FDA is not allowed to order a recall of a product -- but it can issue a
request for a voluntary recall and, in extreme cases, can order seizure
of products. On Dec. 7, 1990, representatives of soft drink
manufacturers met with FDA officials to share their findings. According
to a memo of that meeting, they "expressed their concern about the
presence of benzene traces in their products and the potential for
adverse publicity associated with this problem." The FDA ruled that the
problem was not large enough to warrant a recall, "agree[ing] that low
ppb level of benzene found in these products do not constitute an
imminent health hazard." [sic]

That finding, however, flies in the face of other beverage scares
involving benzene at the time, and may have had more to do with
companies' fear of damage to their bottom lines than legitimate health
concerns. In January 1990, Perrier sparkling water in the United States
had been found contaminated with benzene at levels up to 22 ppb. More
than 160 million bottles of water were recalled worldwide, at a loss of
$263 million to the company. Perrier's reputation took a hit as well,
as the company was condemned for its failure to act quickly and for
continuing to advertise during the recall.

A few months later, an Australian company named Koala Springs
International ordered a recall in November 1990, when a Florida health
agency found benzene levels of 11 to 18 ppb in its sparkling water with
fruit additive -- which was formed by the same combination of sodium
benzoate and ascorbic acid as in the Project Denver tests (in fact, the
Koala Springs incident precipitated the tests in the first place).

Other recalls have taken place since the Project Denver findings. In
the United Kingdom in 1998, Coca Cola-Schweppes ordered a recall of
Malvern sparkling water, as well as cans of Coke, Sprite, Fanta and Dr.
Pepper found to contain benzene at levels up to 20 ppb due to
contaminated carbon dioxide. Britvic Soft Drinks shortly followed suit,
recalling more than 2 million cans of soda, including Regular and Diet
Orange Tango, Lemon Tango, Pepsi and 7-Up, which had also been made
with the contaminated gas. At the time, the British Soft Drink
Association stated that the products were being withdrawn for "quality
reasons," not because they posed a health threat, but reaffirmed a vow
to recall any beverages contaminated with benzene at more than 10 ppb.

And in June 1999, Coca-Cola was forced to recall 65 million cans of
Coke in Belgium and France after more than 200 people became
myteriously sick. The company's initial stonewalling on the issue
caused a public relations disaster that led to a 10 percent drop in
stock price and temporary bans in several countries. While the company
eventually determined that the contamination was due to bad carbon
dioxide and pallets contaminated by a benzene derivative, a European
commission later concluded that Coca-Cola's explanation was "highly
unlikely," leaving lingering questions about the source of that
contamination.

Apart from the potential bad publicity, Alibrandi speculates that the
Big Three soft drink makers (Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Cadbury-Schweppes)
didn't publicly recall their products in 1990 because of fears that
they might have to replace sodium benzoate -- an important
anti-microbial preservative. Without it or its cousin potassium
benzoate, he says, drink makers would be unable to cold-bottle their
drinks, instead having to undertake the more costly process of heat
pasteurization. "The Big Three are going to safeguard that
preservative," says Alibrandi. "If they told authorities the magnitude
of it, maybe the risk was to have the preservative pulled. I imagine
that would create a technical nightmare for these folks."

The fix is in?

After the Project Denver tests, the industry moved quickly to minimize
the problem. In less than a month, Cadbury-Schweppes changed the
formula for Orange Crush, removing ascorbic acid from the drink. Later,
chemists discovered that the benzene-causing reaction could be slowed
by a "technical fix" -- the addition of other chemicals called
"chelating agents," of which the most common is called calcium disodium
EDTA. "The soft drink industry promptly took steps to address the
causes of benzene formation, and the matter was resolved through
improved manufacturing procedures," said American Beverage Association
(ABA) spokesperson Kathleen Dezio in a statement, when the
whistleblower documents were posted last year.

After the most recent revelations, ABA vice president Mike Redman, who
was at the 1990 meeting with the FDA, reiterated that point in a letter
to the Raleigh News & Observer: "Products that contain sodium benzoate
and ascorbic acid are not inherently unsafe," he wrote. "Steps can be
taken, and have been taken, in the formulation process to address
reactions that may lead to benzene. You do not necessarily need to
remove one of these ingredients to prevent benzene."

Spokespeople for Pepsi and Coke, which makes Fanta, referred calls to
the ABA. A spokesperson for Sunny Delight, Sydney McHugh, denied that
the company's products were dangerous. "We have a deliberate strategy
to prevent benzene from forming in any of our products," she says,
adding the company has gotten a clean bill of health from independent
analysis. "If we ever find evidence of benzene in any our products, we
will reformulate our products."

But recently, Alibrandi says he was shocked when he pulled trade
samples of hundreds of beverages and found the same combination of
sodium or potassium benzoate and ascorbic acid, including some without
the "technical fix" of one of the chelating agents. "I was astounded to
see the number of products that contained this combination," says
Alibrandi. "If this broke 15 years ago, why wasn't this rectified
across the industry? The consumers of America deserve better."

Alibrandi and his lawyer, Ross Getman, alerted the FDA to the problem
last November, but the agency initially denied the need for new tests,
saying that it had adequately dealt with the issue in the early 1990s.
To its credit, the FDA had commissioned a study of the benzene problem
shortly after the Project Denver findings. In that study, which
appeared in a medical journal in 1993, FDA chemists tested 50 different
types of foods and beverages, including soft drinks, and found that
none had a level of more than 2 ppb. Another study released around the
same time by a chemist who consulted with the FDA isolated the process
whereby sodium benzoate and ascorbic acid could form benzene. In
samples made to approximate soft drinks, it found benzene was formed in
levels of less than 1 ppb. Even so, the study recommended "the
combination of ascorbic acid and sodium benzoate in foods and beverages
should be evaluated more carefully."

Other findings in the FDA's study are more worrisome. In that study,
beverages were kept refrigerated, despite the indications in the
whistleblower documents that results were exacerbated by heat and
light. As a postscript to the study, however, researchers prepared
solutions of sodium or potassium benzoate and ascorbic acid, similar to
those found in some soft drinks, and exposed them to heat and light.
After 20 hours at room temperature, these solutions had formed benzene
in levels of 4 ppb. After another 8 days, that shot off the charts to
266 ppb. Exposing the solutions to "strong UV light" and/or
temperatures of 45 C (113 F) for 20 hours shot the levels up even
further, to 300 ppb. The study concluded that the "benzene formed is
associated with the interaction of these two compounds. In these cases,
the removal of one of the compounds may mitigate benzene formation."

Despite these findings, Pauli defends the agency's decision not to
commission further testing at the time, saying that products were
unlikely to be exposed to extremes of heat and light. "With the amount
of staff we have, there is no way we could test more than a small
sample of products," he says. "There are more important things for our
people to do." Lawyer Getman, however, argues it's not unreasonable to
think that soft drinks could regularly be exposed to extreme
conditions. "What are they doing in New Delhi?" he says. "Many of these
countries involve vendors who don't refrigerate their products. It's
sold out of a cart along with the chicken kabobs."

Getman questions industry claims that all products have been
reformulated to fix the problem. Because the Big Three producers and
the FDA kept the benzene problem out of the press, other smaller
manufacturers may have been unaware of the need for the technical fix.
In addition, some European countries don't allow such chelating agents
as calcium disodium EDTA, making it unclear how the Big Three's
products may have been reformulated to correct the problem in those
countries.

After being rebuffed by the FDA, Alibrandi and Getman organized their
own series of independent tests in November, acquiring samples from as
far away as Italy and Argentina and submitting them to a lab in New
York. Of the dozen beverages they tested, three were found to contain
levels more than 20 ppb. They sent the results to the FDA, finally
alarming the agency enough to conduct its own tests.

Two weeks ago, Pauli confirmed to reporters that a small number of
beverages in their study had tested positive for elevated levels of
benzene up to 10-20 ppb. Since then, however, other countries including
the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Germany and China have followed
through with their own tests. Last week, tests in Britain returned more
alarming results: of 230 beverages tested, 130 had benzene levels in
excess of the European Union Limit for drinking water of 1 ppb, with
some containing up to eight times that limit, according to The Times of
London.

Neither American nor British authorities have so far released their
testing results, and the FDA has yet to make a public announcement
about the danger. That's unacceptable, says Tim Kropp, a senior
scientist with the Environmental Working Group, a watchdog organization
that has called on the FDA to release data from its study. "Without the
public knowing, there is no incentive to do anything," he says.
"Industry doesn't move unless they have to."

After all, says Kropp, if the public had been notified back in 1990,
the current scare might have been prevented. "We've known this is a
problem for over a decade, and it hasn't been fixed. This is what
happens when you have a voluntary agreement that is not even made
public. It boggles my mind that anyone would think that would work."

A good start to preventing future problems, says Kropp, is to set
levels for harmful chemicals like benzene for food and drink similar to
those that are in place for drinking water. "Benzene doesn't care
whether you are drinking soda or water, and neither does your body," he
says. Lawyer Getman agrees. "Consider, which does the average
5-year-old drink more of, pop or water?" he says. "You are not going to
find a parent who says my kid drinks eight glasses of water a day."

Getman and Alibrandi are now awaiting the results of further testing in
the United States and other countries to determine the extent of the
problem that was first discovered in a lab 16 years ago. As more
details about what the industry did and didn't do emerge, there is a
possibility that companies could be held legally at fault, adding
another crisis to a soft drink industry that has had no shortage of bad
news. Getman ticks off a long list of legal questions presented by the
issue, including product liability and deceptive consumer practices.
"Especially in hot climates abroad where no technical fix was put in,"
he says, "the potential implications for liability are huge."

Michael Blanding is a freelance writer living in Boston. Read more of
his writing at MichaelBlanding.com