Lawmakers demand ban on Pepsi and Coca-Cola [India]

NEW DELHI, India (AP): Lawmakers on Wednesday called for a ban on the sale of Pepsi and Coke after an independent Indian research body claimed the soft drinks contained dangerous levels of pesticide residue. Both companies have denied the allegations.

Meanwhile, canteens in Parliament on Wednesday stopped selling the soft drinks, Press Trust of India news agency reported, quoting E. Ahmed, chairman of the parliamentary committee on food management.

In a display of unity, ruling coalition and opposition lawmakers together called for further investigations of the report by the New Delhi-based Center for Science and Environment.

Health Minister Sushma Swaraj said the findings were startling, and the government had ordered a comprehensive probe of the allegations.

"I will collect all the facts and come back to the House (Parliament),'' Swaraj told agitated lawmakers. The Center for Science and Environment said Tuesday that the levels of pesticides in the PepsiCo Inc. brands tested were 36 times higher than European Union standards. The center said the average pesticide level for Coca-Cola products was 30 times higher than EU guidelines.

It acknowledged that Indian brands also have high pesticide levels, because agricultural pesticides are in the country's ground water, but said the focus was on Coke and Pepsi because they account for more than three-fourths of the bottled soft drinks consumed in India.

"We tested the two soft drink brands sold in the United States to see if these contained pesticides. They didn't,'' said Sunita Narain, chief of the CSE.

The toxins found in the soft drinks could, if consumed over a long period, cause cancer, damage to the nervous and immune systems, and birth defects, said Narain. She noted that India has no laws banning pesticides in soft drinks.

The top executives of the two rival companies at a rare joint news conference on Tuesday rejected the allegations.

Calling the report "baseless,'' Rajeev Bakshi, head of PepsiCo India Holdings Private Ltd., demanded the claims be verified by an independent and accredited laboratory.

Sanjeev Gupta, president and chief executive officer of Coca-Cola India, challenged the assertion that the soft drink sold in India is different from that sold in other countries. "Our product is ... the same product, which we sell in America, in Europe and India,'' he said.

Separately on Wednesday, a government-funded regulator in southern Kerala state said the sludge produced by Coca-Cola's bottling plant given free to local farmers as fertilizer contains a metallic chemical that can cause cancer.

The Kerala State Pollution Control Board found that the sludge produced by Coca-Cola's plant in Plachimedu village contained 201.8 milligrams of cadmium per kilogram, Chairman Paul Thachil told The Associated Press by telephone from the state capital, Trivandrum.

"The level at which cadmium becomes hazardous is 50 milligrams per kilogram. This is more than four times that level,'' Thachil said.

In an e-mailed response, Coca-Cola spokesman Gupta said the company commissioned tests on fresh samples by an independent laboratory in New Delhi and they showed that metal content levels in the sludge were well within EU and Indian norms.

Environmental group Greenpeace said its laboratory tests also had revealed high levels of heavy metal content in the sludge and that it could cause cancer. Greenpeace activists have been camping in the area for the past week, demanding the plant be closed.

India banned Coca-Cola in the late 1970s after the soft drink maker refused to divulge the beverage's contents. It returned to the Indian market in 1993, around the time Pepsi entered the local market.

"We tested the two soft drink brands sold in the United States to see if these contained pesticides. They didn't,'' said Sunita Narain, chief of the CSE.

Let's see; so they get rid of Coke/Pepsi and consumers then turn to the native brands, which are ALSO contaminated. Accomplishment: nothing.

Fine. Let's put a big tarrif on phone calls from India. See how quickly all these white collar jobs we just exported there go away.

Let's see; so they get rid of Coke/Pepsi and consumers then turn to the native brands, which are ALSO contaminated. Accomplishment: nothing.

Coke and Pepsi are native brands, too. Produced by local bottlers under license. It doesn't even hurt the local bottlers. All they have to do is use a slightly different formula and slap a different label on the bottles.

We must airlift massive quantities of Canada Dry Ginger Ale from Canada, or the Indian government might have to clean up the water supply.

Being a Diet Pepsi fan, I was delighted to see it for sale in Beijing when I visited there. One sip, though, told me instantly that it wasn't the same stuff. The difference may have been in the artificial sweetener (it wasn't aspartame or saccharin), but whatever it was made it nonpotable to me.

I drink coke and when I was living in China I too noticed a difference between American coke and Chinese coke. On a different subject, the milk tasted differently as well.

8 posted on 08/06/2003 9:41:15 PM PDT by yonif ("If I Forget Thee, O Jerusalem, Let My Right Hand Wither" - Psalms 137:5)

Coke outside the USA is produced with sugar. Coke inside the US is produced with corn based sweetners.

You can thank Congress and the sugar growers lobby for that.

And for the loss of many candy making jobs which are now relocated in Canada.

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