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A Soft Drink Generation Poisoned with Pesticides
Darryl D’Monte reports from India on allegations that the two “cola kings” in India – Coca-Cola and Pepsi – are selling drinks with traces of pesticide. The allegations have raised a huge controversy, with parliament first banning their sales in the House, and schools and other institutions following suit. The controversy has deepened with some agencies giving the manufacturers a clean chit, while the media NGO that raised the issue points to the lax controls in India on water standards.
The allegation by the Delhi-based media NGO, the Centre for Science & Environment (CSE), that Coca-Cola and Pepsi are selling sub-standard products has taken a curious turn, with official agencies issuing contradictory statements regarding the contents. The central government has stated that these beverage manufacturers sold bottled water within prescribed limits, but constituted a joint parliamentary committee to probe pesticide contamination in the colas, in the absence of separate standards for soft drinks. However, the appointment of Mr Sharad Pawar, a former Chief Minister of Maharashtra, to head this committee does not inspire confidence, given his lack of probity in several controversial affairs, not least his endorsement of the Enron power plant in his home state.
Maharashtra’s Food and Drug Administration, which has a better reputation than most others, had first cleared both colas but then confirmed that samples taken in June did contain traces of pesticide above India’s prescribed limits. It is vitally important for all regulatory agencies to seize samples sold at the end of July and earlier, since they are being replaced. The CSE alleges that the government has analysed different batches of drinks from those that the CSE itself did and wants the same batches of colas to be compared. It further alleges that the manufacturers are now replacing stocks with more recent batches, which are using better quality water.
The Supreme Court, meanwhile, has ruled out Coca-Cola’s plea for the central government to appoint an independent laboratory to test samples of its drink. Unmindful of the irony in its request, the top lawyer Kapil Sibal reminded the court of “the grave danger posed to the soft drink manufacturer” (!) in the wake of the allegations posed by the CSE in early August.
This is not going to be a controversy that dies down easily. On the one side are ranged some of the most powerful corporate interests ever. Coca-Cola is simply the world’s biggest brand, estimated at $70 billion. The Indian soft drinks market, of which the two cola kings dominate with an 80% share, is put at a staggering $1.74 billion a year. Indeed, Mr Sibal added insult to injury (literally, in this case!) when he referred to the harm the controversy was causing to his big client by schools, colleges, government bodies and others refusing to accept crates of coke.
The Main Issues Should not be Side-Tracked
Sunita Narain of the CSE wishes to highlight the abysmal lack of standards in India for food and drink
However, this controversy, like so many others, is in danger of becoming a case of demonising the cola kings or environmentalists, depending on which side one supports. This would be to miss the issue altogether, as Sunita Narain, the feisty Director of the CSE, keeps pointing out. She has made it clear that she does not wish primarily to take on the manufacturers for cheating the Indian consumer. Her agenda, on the contrary, is to highlight the abysmal lack of standards within the country for food (and drink). This is why earlier this year, the CSE pointed out the grave shortcomings in the permitted pesticide content in bottled water, almost all of which brands failed to meet internationally accepted standards.
Ironically enough, CSE was at the time accused of being in the pay of Coca-Cola and Pepsi because the main targets – as in any such investigation it conducts – were the biggest brands, which happened to belong to Indian companies like Ramesh Chauhan’s Bisleri (he sold the indigenous cola Thums Up to Coca-Cola for some $60 million several years ago).
The media, typically, has stirred up a hornets’ nest and tended to obscure the main issue, seeking to put drinks manufacturers rather than the central and state governments and its official regulatory agencies like the Pollution Control Boards and food and drug inspectorates on the mat. It is necessary to reiterate what the CSE sought to demonstrate. It now has its own sophisticated laboratory to ensure that it is not only in full possession of the samples that it has tested but, equally importantly, is fully abreast of the analytical techniques. It checked all drinks for 16 organochlorine pesticides, 12 organophosphorous and four synthetic pyrethroids. All contained pesticide residues, compared to the European Economic Community’s (EEC) standards. DDT was 15 times higher, lindane 21 times, chlorphyrifos 42 times and malathion a staggering 87 times. Coca-Cola had pesticide 45 times more than the prescribed EEC limits and Mirinda Lemon 70 times.
The harsh truth is that when the CSE tested samples of Coca-Cola and Pepsi from the US, it found that the latter were absolutely free of such contamination. The answer, obviously, lies in the water used, since there are strict rules regarding the use of such pesticides in the US and Europe where some, like DDT, are banned altogether. The Indian subsidiaries may well argue that they are simply meeting domestic standards, but this can hardly hold water (pardon the pun), if they claim to be selling a standard product worldwide.
Proper Regulations Lacking
Allegations of large concentrations of pesticides present in Coca-Cola and Pepsi are currently under investigation
The real story is that the standards for soft drinks are even more lax than they are for bottled water, which were imposed five years ago. While the Fruit Product Order, issued by the Ministry of Food Processing Industries, regulates the amount of fruit pulp and sugar or glucose in such drinks, there is no regulation on the basic raw material, water, other than to specify that “potable” water must be used. Further, while the Prevention of Food Adulteration, under another agency, the Ministry of Health, regulates the amount of pesticides in food, beverages are excluded altogether. There is a clause regarding standards for non-alcoholic drinks, but it says nothing about pesticides. There are several clauses that prescribe voluntary compliance. The true culprits, therefore, are the various official agencies – the very sources which Coca-Cola and Pepsi are running to in order to obtain respite from the blistering allegations which, reportedly, have reduced their sales in some cities by as much as 60% for the time being.
It is 41 years since Rachel Carson first drew the attention of the American public, and subsequently of much of the world, to the dangers of indiscriminate use of pesticides in agriculture, which eventually find their way into the wildlife and human food chain. There have been heated controversies over whether or not to ban DDT and malathion in this country: while it kills off mosquitoes and other pests which can cause malaria and dreaded epidemics, as well as rodents which consume food grain stocks, it causes havoc in the human system. It is nothing less than a toss-up between short-term gains and long-term hazards. This is why the World Health Organization (WHO) and other agencies found that Indians have the highest traces of DDT in their bodies. One has only to recall a WHO poster several years ago which simply showed a bare female breast with the caption: “Milk in these containers is unfit for human consumption.”
The real need, clearly, is for much stricter standards in every sphere of life that has an impact on health and well being. Only recently, for instance, the accident in the Kalpakkam nuclear plant in south India has once again raised fears regarding the safety of workers in such installations – not to mention the nearby residents if there is a bigger catastrophe. Typically, workers are not granted access to their medical records in nuclear and chemical plants under the specious plea that these belong to the company and are “confidential”. The lack of safety standards has been even more shockingly absent in procedures for spraying pesticides, with illiterate farmers mixing toxic chemicals with their bare hands and inhaling fumes as the chemicals are sprayed.
The least the parliamentary committee must do is to highlight the incredibly hazardous shortcomings in standards in the food and drink industry, which obviously have a direct impact on human health. The cola kings are raising a red herring by arguing that prescribing EEC standards will adversely impact Indian agriculture. For multinationals accused of “colonising” the world, this is a laughable argument.
In the wake of the CSE’s allegations, the media has correctly highlighted how all vegetables also have pesticide residues, while foodstuffs are adulterated with every conceivable colouring agent and other chemicals, many of which are carcinogenic. India already has the unsavoury reputation of being a country with the worst AIDS pandemic; it will quickly catapult itself into a similar status for cancer, at this rate.
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