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India mandates a final product standard for soft drinks
Government panel recommends first-ever regulation of soft drinks
- CSE’s studies on soft drinks vindicated
- Government must now issue final notification on standards
March 15, 2007, New Delhi: Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), while welcoming the report of the government expert committee which has recommended a standard to regulate soft drinks, has urged the need to mandate the standards so that safety is not compromised. The expert committee, chaired by N K Ganguly, director general of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), was set up in the wake of the study conducted by CSE on pesticide residues in soft drinks, to finalise standards for these drinks. The committee’s report, made public today, puts to rest this issue.
This now paves the way for the Union health ministry to set up a mandatory final product standard for pesticide residues in soft drinks. “This is a logical next step in our four-year long fight. In 2004, the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) had endorsed our findings and directed for a final product standard. Now the health ministry committee has concluded that these products need to be regulated for public health purposes and therefore, a final product standard is a must,” said Sunita Narain, director, CSE.
Standard recommended
The committee has recommended a “maximum residue level of 1 part per billion (ppb) for an individual pesticide for carbonated water”. The panel’s report has based its recommendations on a public health risk assessment of soft drinks based on the concept of how much of these drinks we consume.
While the panel has recommended limits for individual pesticides, it has stopped short of prescribing a limit for total pesticide residues in soft drinks -- a move which CSE criticises. “The individual pesticide limit of 1 ppb is 10 times the limit that the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) had finalised. And the committee has erred by not fixing a limit for total pesticides in soft drinks. This will make regulating difficult, if not completely impossible,” said Chandra Bhushan, associate director, CSE. The BIS had, in March 2006, finalised a standard for soft drinks for individual pesticides at 0.1 ppb and total pesticides at 0.5 ppb.
It is clear that the government must notify the total pesticides “allowed” in soft drinks; otherwise, it will negate this effort to regulate drinks and make it completely useless. As soft drinks are not part of the daily diet – which means that these products are not essential – it is important also that standards should be set using this criterion of total safety in our food.
Should standards be set for final product?
The first issue confronting the committee was the need for a standard to regulate the quantum of pesticides in the final product – the soft drink we consume. The contention of the soft drink companies is that standards should be set on the inputs – the water and sugar – and not on the final product. CSE has been arguing for a standard on the final product as it provides consumers with the best assurance of the safety of the product. The committee has, in its report, endorsed the need for the standard to be set on the final product, which once done, will be the first such standard in the world.
Sugar and water
The Union health minister, in his statement to the Parliament on August 22, 2006 on this issue, had said that the government was examining pesticides in the sugar used in the manufacture of these drinks. The companies had said that the sugar was responsible for pesticide contamination in their drinks, not the water they used. The final report of this analysis shows that no pesticides were detected in sugar, clearly vindicating the position of CSE that companies were using the bogey of sugar to delay and prevaricate on setting the final standard.
Cannot test pesticides in soft drinks
The soft drink companies have said repeatedly that government cannot set a standard because their product, being a complex matrix, cannot be reliably tested in laboratories. CSE had in its presentation to the committee shown how governments across the world are testing soft drinks for pesticide residues. The committee has accepted that laboratory tests can be done to check for pesticides at sub-ppb levels.
Basis for setting standard
The issue that needs to be resolved is the total quantum of pesticides mandated in the final product. The committee here has erred, in the view of CSE, by suggesting that standards for pesticide residues should be set on the basis of total consumption of these drinks in the country. Clearly, this would mean that standards would have to be revised if the consumption of the drinks increases, as the health risk would be enhanced. Or that consumption should be capped at a certain level, for which the standard has been set. This is certainly not the advisable method for setting a standard.
Instead, the standard should be based on the pesticides allowed in the different components of the food basket as is done across the world. This trade-off between nutrition and pesticides would allow for pesticides in products which are essential for nutrition and well-being. This would mean that soft drinks are provided with the minimum allowances for pesticides as these are not essential or nutritive products, particularly as Indians are exposed to higher contamination and we need to reduce and restrict everywhere possible.
“It is clear that now, the efforts of the companies will shift to arguing for the need for more health risk assessments and for more time to finalise testing protocols and for more time to find laboratories equipped to do these tests. But the time for all that has gone. The government has already set up countless numbers of commissions and spent countless numbers of committee hours to decide on the need for standards for these products. It is imperative that the issue now moves forward: the final product standard must be notified by the government and this standard must quantify the individual and total amount of pesticides allowed in soft drinks. Otherwise our health will remain compromised and at risk,” said Narain.
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