Cancer Risk from 1,000 Cans of Cola a Day (KO, PEP)
A consumer group called Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) claims that the food coloring that gives colas their distinctive coloring has been found to be carcinogenic in animals. The substance is 4-methylimidazole (4-MI), and has been found…
The group petitioned the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to ban the substance in February 2011, but the agency has not yet done so. Bloomberg News cites an FDA email saying:
A consumer would have to drink more than a thousand cans of soda in a day to match the doses administered in studies that showed links to cancer in rodents.
Pepsico is switching to a caramel-coloring additive in California that the company claims contains far less of the potentially harmful substance.
The CSPI press release is available here.
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Paul Ausick has been writing for 247Wallst.com for more than a decade. He has written extensively on investing in the energy, defense, and technology sectors. In a previous life, he wrote technical documentation and managed a marketing communications group in Silicon Valley.
He has a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Chicago and now lives in Montana, where he fishes for trout in the summer and stays inside during the winter.
