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CSE Dares Cola Companies to Come Clean
No more spins, no more half truths. Clean up your bottles, says CSE in
an open challenge to the soft drink majors
New Delhi, August 7, 2006:
The CSE study had found that 57 bottles from 12 states contained residues
anywhere between 10-50 times above the final (not notified) standard. In
this one week, the two companies – PepsiCo and Coca-Cola – have not released
information about even one bottle of their product they have tested in 2005
or 2006. They want us to believe that they are safe because film stars drink
their product, or because other food in India is contaminated. “This is a
clever spin and will not fool the Indian consumer,” says CSE.
These
companies are masters of spin and are misleading the Indian public. This is
clearly unacceptable. “The bottom line is that the drinks are unsafe because
the pesticide residues we detected are way above the final (not notified)
standards,” restates CSE. The companies want to make us forget their
contamination by saying that the rest of the country is contaminated, so
what can they do! Their insinuation is that they are being targeted because
they are poor multinational companies. Their star endorser, Shahrukh
Khan, was today quoted in the media saying “We are a filthy country.” Is he,
therefore, implying that we deserve filthy products?
PepsiCo
has released advertisements in different newspapers today, which according
to CSE, is clever copywriting full of half-truths. The advert says they are
clean because they are meeting drinking water standards. The data they put
out in their defence is from the 2004 Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC).
“But they are selectively quoting from the JPC report to mislead us,”
says CSE. For instance, while the advertisement issued by Pepsi says
that pesticides in its Diet Pepsi are “below limit”, it conveniently forgets
to add that the same sample exceeds the limit for DDT, a banned and deadly
pesticide, by 80 per cent.
Worse,
the companies use data from two brands to say that they are clean, but hide
the data from three other brands, which indicts them for being unsafe
because they were not meeting the drinking water standards. The same report
says that Blue Pepsi is higher by 5.2 times, Mirinda Lemon by 4.2 times, and
Mirinda Orange 3.4 times than the drinking water standards (see table).
It also
does not tell you that data for individual pesticides is even more deadly.
Mirinda Lemon exceeded the safe limit of chlorpyrifos by eight times and
that of DDT by nine times. Based on this, the JPC had concluded: “The
Committee feels that claims made by the cola companies in their
advertisement tantamount to misleading the public as their products do
contain pesticides, which have ill effect on human health in the long run.”
|
S
no. |
Brand |
JPC found in 2004 (number of times the packaged water standard) |
CSE found in 2006 (number of times the packaged water standard) |
Companies data 2006 |
|
1. |
Blue Pepsi |
5.2 times higher |
Not available |
? |
|
2. |
Mirinda Lemon |
4.2 times higher |
16.2 times higher |
? |
|
3. |
Mirinda Orange |
3.4 times higher |
21.4 times higher |
? |
|
4. |
Diet Pepsi |
Within standard |
-- |
? |
|
5. |
PepsiCo |
Within standard |
30.4 times higher |
? |
|
6. |
Seven-Up |
|
25 times higher |
? |
CSE would
like to know if the companies have been testing their products since then.
If they are, what does the data show? And if they are not, then how do they
claim that they are still safe? “Where is the evidence that they are right?”
asks CSE.
Safe,
because others are unsafe
The companies also want us to believe that they are safe because the rest of
India is ‘unsafe’. Two wrongs do not make a right and this is clearly some
clever spin-doctoring so that the focus is not on the two companies anymore.
Safety is defined as meeting standards. CSE says that these products are
unsafe because they exceed the final (not notified) standards by 10-50
times. The companies also cannot say that groundwater is contaminated
because they have the technology to clean it up.
The fact
also is that any food – from milk to apples – which does not meet the
standards is unsafe and must be regulated. The environmental community,
including CSE, is working hard to minimise this contamination. “The
pesticide industry has filed numerous cases against us to stifle our work
and voice. This will not deter us. But this does not mean that colas are
safe,” points out CSE.
The fact
also is that standards for pesticide residues are set based on nutrition
that the food provides. We cannot compare apples with soft drinks. We cannot
compare milk with soft drinks. Milk is essential and it gives us nutrition.
But soft drinks are non-essential, non-nutritive. They should not have
pesticides. They are unsafe, asserts CSE. No amount of scientific
skullduggery can deny that.
For more
details, please call Souparno Banerjee or Shachi Chaturvedi on +91
98100 98142, or write to them at souparno@cseindia.org or
shachi@cseindia.org
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