Business Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Tuesday, Aug 15, 2006
Business Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Tuesday, Aug 15, 2006 |
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Beverages Marketing - Standards & Benchmarks UK lab questions CSE report Our Bureau
At receiving end The CSE report does not seem to comply with the European Union's Analytical Quality Control guidelines to support the validity of their data. CSE did not subject its data and findings to peer scientific review.
THE DEFENSE: (From left) Prof John Gilbert, Science Director (Food), Central Science Laboratory; Dr D.V. Darshane, Director, Quality Policy & Standards, Global Quality, Coca-Cola Company, Atlanta - USA; and Dr Stewart Reynolds, Head of the Analytical Services Unit, Central Science Laboratory, at a press conference in the Capital on Monday. — Ramesh Sharma
New Delhi , Aug. 14 The UK-based Central Science Laboratory (CSL) has questioned the findings of the Centre for Science and Environment's (CSE) latest report on the alleged higher-than-prescribed pesticide residues in soft drinks sold by Coca-Cola and PepsiCo in the country. "From what we have read, the (report's) findings are unusual," Prof John Gilbert, Science Director (Food), at CSL — an agency of the UK Government's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs — told presspersons here on Monday.
Unusual findings
Elaborating the point, Dr Stewart Reynolds, Head of CSL's Analytical Services Unit, said that the CSE report had mentioned about the presence of heptachlor in 72 per cent of the samples tested by it. "Heptachlor is an organochlorine pesticide that is inherently unstable in aqueous environments and rapidly degrades into heptachlor epoxide. How they have found presence of heptachlor itself in the samples is very strange. This is more so when the use of heptachlor is banned since 1996," he noted. Similarly, with respect to lindane, Dr Reynolds said that the active constituent in this organochlorine insecticide is the "gamma isomer of hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH)". Even the most badly produced lindane formulation would contain 80 per cent or more of gamma-HCH, with the rest comprising alpha, beta and delta isomers. "Given this, one would expect the pesticide residue profile to also follow a similar pattern of very high gamma-HCH and also some beta-HCH as it is a stable isomer. But the report indicates presence of delta-HCH in all samples, which again is unusual," he added. According to Prof Gilbert, measuring pesticide residues at low levels is an "extremely difficult" job, for which the laboratories concerned were expected to conform to standards set under ISO-17025.
Complaint on report
"The CSE report does not seem to comply with the European Union's Analytical Quality Control guidelines to support the validity of their data. Neither have they subjected their data and findings to peer scientific review, which a report of this kind ought to be doing," he pointed out. Prof Gilbert said that CSL had only last week conducted tests for the presence of the four pesticides (lindane, heptachlor, chlorpyrifos and malathion) mentioned in the CSE report.
`No residues'
"We did not detect any residues," he claimed, even while admitting that the samples tested were provided by Coca-Cola and not sourced independently from the market. CSL, he said, undertook tests of this nature on a contract basis and "this is a normal practice". The Director (Policies & Standards Global Quality) of the Coca-Cola Company, Dr D.V. Darshane, said that the company would also supply samples of its products to the Mysore-based Central Food Technology Research Institute (CFTRI) and other reputed labs in the country.
Related Stories: More Stories on : Beverages | Standards & Benchmarks | Pesticides
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