June 10, 2006

Carcinogens discovered in soft drinks

Martin Mittelstaedt
Environment Reporter

Globe and Mail

TORONTO -- Health Canada has found benzene in about 20 per cent of the soft drinks and other beverages it analyzed in a spot check earlier this year, including four widely available beverages that exceeded Canada's drinking-water standard for the contaminant.

Health Canada discovered the benzene, a known carcinogen, in a check of 118 beverages bought at an Ottawa grocery store in April. Federal health authorities conducted the test after a private laboratory detected the chemical in similar drinks in the United States last year.

The highest concentrations were in a Kool-Aid Jammers 10 tropical punch, made by Kraft Canada Inc. Its benzene levels were 4½ times Canada's drinking-water standard.

Another Kool-Aid flavour was nearly three times the standard, a Mott's Margarita Mix was almost double, and Rose's Cocktail Infusion, sold by Cadbury Schweppes Canada Inc., was 20 per cent above the drinking-water standard.

Samuel Ben Rejeb, director of Health Canada's bureau of chemical safety, said the government requested that Kraft reformulate the Kool-Aid to lower the benzene amounts because the drink is directed at children.

The reformulated version has been on store shelves since May 19.

Even so, Mr. Ben Rejeb said the benzene amounts found "did not represent a health concern" and Canadian beverages "are safe for consumption based on the potential occurrence of benzene."

A spokesman for Kraft said the company took quick action to reformulate its Kool-Aid, but didn't recall existing stocks because Health Canada didn't believe the products posed enough of a health threat to warrant it.

Before the reformulation, some types of the Kool-Aid drink in Canada had up to 10 times more benzene than the versions sold in the United States.

"We took immediate steps to reduce the possibility of benzene formation," Kraft Canada spokesman Don Blair said.

"Consumer safety is Kraft's highest priority."

Benzene forms when ascorbic acid, the vitamin C added to many beverages, reacts with either sodium benzoate or potassium benzoate, two common preservatives that companies add to their products to prevent bacterial growth.

Health Canada has posted the test results, which included most of the brand-name soft drinks sold in Canada, on its website.

A Cadbury spokeswoman, Luisa Girotto, said the company changed its drink for marketing reasons before Health Canada found the contaminant.

The new version doesn't have detectible levels of the chemical, and she said the benzene found in the old formulation would have been lower had it been measured in a diluted form as it would be when used as a mixer for alcoholic drinks.

Mott's provided Health Canada with another container of its Margarita mix that had a benzene content below the drinking-water standard.

Benzene is a health concern because it has been linked to leukemia and lymphoma, along with lung and bladder cancers.

It is considered so dangerous that Canada's drinking-water standard sets a maximum acceptable level of only five parts per billion. A part per billion is a very small amount, equivalent to one second of elapsed time over 32 years. The highest Kool-Aid concentration was 23 ppb, and another had 19 ppb. The Mott's Margarita Mix had 9.9 ppb, and Cadbury's Rose's Cocktail had 6 ppb.

An official at an environmental organization that has been investigating contaminants in common household items accused Health Canada of lax regulatory oversight for not noticing that many beverages it is supposed to be monitoring contained a carcinogen.

"If we can't trust our federal government to keep a known poison out of soft drinks, something that virtually everybody in this country consumes on a regular basis, what can we count on them to do?" said Rick Smith, executive director of Environmental Defence, a Toronto organization.

Health Canada has known that benzene could build up in soft drinks since the early 1990s. But at that time, it found that levels were below official standards for drinking water.

However, there is no regular monitoring of new products or reformulated drinks.

Mr. Ben Rejeb said Health Canada considers the benzene exposures from drinks to be safe because the amounts people are likely to consume from this source would be small compared with those from other sources.