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Pepsi company in a lawsuit(soup)!

by Medindia Content Team on May 6 2006 6:44 PM

Health conscious people here lawyers in California have sued PepsiCo alleging one of its drinks may contain the cancer-causing chemical benzene.

The drink in question is Pepsi Twist drink, and it is the first time one of America's 'big three' soft drinks firms has been drawn into a legal battle.

Lawyers Howard Hewell and Howard Rubinstein, allege in the lawsuit, "Pepsi Twist has been falsely promoted as a safe consumer product, when in fact; it contains the ingredients ascorbic acid and potassium benzoate, which can and do produce the carcinogenic chemical benzene when exposed to heat and light."

The action means benzene lawsuits have now been filed against soft drinks firms in five different US states.

Citing health concerns FDA has stressed that benzene levels it has found so far did not pose an immediate health risk to consumers, but that some reformulation would be required.

The suspected source of benzene is two common ingredients – sodium benzoate and ascorbic acid (vitamin C) – in the drinks, although potassium benzoate has been shown to cause the same problem.

More than 1,500 soft drinks containing a combination of sodium benzoate and ascorbic acid or citric acid have been launched across Europe, North America and Latin America in the last four years.

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According to Kababick, who claimed to have devised a better test for benzene the FDA's procedure exposed drinks to heat, which could cause more benzene to form in the drink and so skew results in so-called off-the-shelf testing.

So this could be another twist in the pepsi saga!


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