[acb-diabetics] Another reason not to drink sodaFW: [blind-diabetics] Health Article: Why You May Be Drinking Soda That Contains a Dangerous Flame Retardant Banned in Europe and Japan

[Patricia LaFrance-Wolf]

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Subject: [blind-diabetics] Health Article: Why You May Be Drinking Soda That
Contains a Dangerous Flame Retardant Banned in Europe and Japan

 

  



> Environmental Health News/ By Brett Israel
>
>
http://www.alternet.org/story/153638/why_you_may_be_drinking_soda_that_conta
ins_a_dangerous_flame_retardant_banned_in_europe_and_japan?page=entire
>
> Why You May Be Drinking Soda That Contains a Dangerous Flame Retardant 
> Banned in Europe and Japan
> Some soda drinkers may be getting a dose of a synthetic chemical called 
> brominated vegetable oil, or BVO.
> January 2, 2012 |
>
> MARIETTA, Ga. - It's Monday night at the Battle & Brew, a gamer hangout in

> this Atlanta suburb. The crowd is slumping in chairs, ears entombed in 
> headphones, eyes locked on flat-screen monitors and minds lost in
tonight's 
> video game of choice: "The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim."
>
> To help stay alert all night, each man has an open can of "gamer fuel" 
> inches from his keyboard. "I've seen some of these dudes plow through six 
> sodas in six hours," said Brian Smawley, a regular at the gamer bar.
> Gamers say they chug their fuel for the sugar and caffeine, but drinkers 
> of Mountain Dew and some other citrus-flavored drinks are also getting a 
> dose of a synthetic chemical called brominated vegetable oil, or BVO.
> Patented by chemical companies as a flame retardant, and banned in food 
> throughout Europe and Japan, BVO has been added to sodas for decades in 
> North America. Now some scientists have a renewed interest in this 
> little-known ingredient, found in 10 percent of sodas in the United 
> States.
> After a few extreme soda binges - not too far from what many gamers 
> regularly consume - a few patients have needed medical attention for skin 
> lesions, memory loss and nerve disorders, all symptoms of overexposure to 
> bromine. Other studies suggest that BVO could be building up in human 
> tissues, just like other brominated compounds such as flame retardants. In

> mouse studies, big doses caused reproductive and behavioral problems.
> Reports from an industry group helped the U.S. Food and Drug 
> Administration establish in 1977 what it considers a safe limit for BVO in

> sodas. But some scientists say that limit is based on thin, outdated data,

> so they insist that the chemical deserves a fresh look.
> "Aside from these reports, the scientific data is scarce," said Walter 
> Vetter, a food chemist at Germany's University of Hohenheim and author of 
> a recent, but unpublished, study on BVO in European soda imports.
> Flame retardant soda?
> The next time you grab a Mountain Dew, Squirt, Fanta Orange, Sunkist 
> Pineapple, Gatorade Thirst Quencher Orange, Powerade Strawberry Lemonade 
> or Fresca Original Citrus, take a look at the drink's ingredients. In 
> Mountain Dew, brominated vegetable oil is listed next-to-last, between 
> disodium EDTA and Yellow 5. These are just a sampling of drinks with BVO 
> listed in their ingredients, which is required by the FDA. The most 
> popular sodas - Coca-Cola and Pepsi - do not contain BVO.
> You don't have to be a gamer to drink these fruit-flavored sodas. In the 
> United States, 85 percent of kids drink a beverage containing sugar or 
> artificial sweetener at least once per week, according to a studypublished

> last month. Sodas are the largest source of calories for teenagers between

> the ages of 14 to 18, according to a National Cancer Institute study. For 
> adults, soda, energy and sports drinks are the fourth largest source of 
> calories, a federal study found.
> Hold a bottle of Mountain Dew to a light. It's cloudy. Brominated 
> vegetable oil creates the cloudy look by keeping the fruity flavor mixed 
> into the drink. Without an emulsifier such as BVO, the flavoring would 
> float to the surface. The FDA limits the use of BVO to 15 parts per 
> million in fruit-flavored beverages.
> Brominated vegetable oil, which is derived from soybean or corn, contains 
> bromine atoms, which weigh down the citrus flavoring so it mixes with 
> sugar water, or in the case of flame retardants, slows down chemical 
> reactions that cause a fire.
> Brominated flame retardants lately are under intense scrutiny because 
> research has shown that they are building up in people's bodies, including

> breast milk, around the world. Designed to slow the spread of flames, they

> are added to polystyrene foam cushions used in upholstered furniture and 
> children's products, as well as plastics used in electronics. Research in 
> animals as well as some human studies have found links to impaired 
> neurological development, reduced fertility, early onset of puberty and 
> altered thyroid hormones.
> BVO may not be in use today as a flame retardant in furniture foam, but 
> patents in Europe - granted earlier this year to Dow Global Technologies -

> and in the United States - granted in 1967 to Koppers Inc. - keep that 
> possibility alive.
> "There are some concerns [about BVO] because people are worried that maybe

> it has the behavior, [and] potential health effects similar to brominated 
> flame retardants," said Heather Stapleton, an environmental chemist at 
> Duke University who specializes in studying brominated compounds.
> Soda makers and industry groups say they are not concerned about the 
> safety of brominated vegetable oil, saying their products meet all 
> government standards.
> "This is a safe ingredient approved by the FDA, which is used in some 
> citrus-based beverages," said Christopher Gindlesperger of the American 
> Beverage Association, which represents PepsiCo, maker of Mountain Dew. 
> "Importantly, consumers can rest assured that our products are safe and 
> our industry adheres to all government regulations."
> Chris Barnes of the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, makers of Squirt and other 
> drinks that contain BVO, echoed that response.
> "All ingredients in Dr. Pepper Snapple Group products meet FDA and other 
> regulator requirements," Barnes said.
> Dated data
> Some experts are unconvinced, saying that the FDA standards are based on 
> decades-old data.
> "Compounds like these that are in widespread use probably should be 
> reexamined periodically with newer technologies to ensure that there 
> aren't effects that would have been missed by prior methods," said Charles

> Vorhees, a toxicologist at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, 
> who studied BVO's neurological effects in the early 1980s. "I think BVO is

> the kind of compound that probably warrants some reexamination."
> Toxicity testing has changed dramatically in the past few decades. 
> Multiple generations of animals now can be tested for neurodevelopmental, 
> hormonal and reproductive changes that weren't imagined in the 1970s and 
> early 1980s.
> "I am no toxicologist, but I think that the toxic evaluation of chemicals 
> has been improved since then," Vetter added.
> In 1970, scientists in England found that rats on a six-week diet 
> containing 0.8 percent brominated maize oil had stockpiles of bromine in 
> their fat tissue. The bromine stayed there even after the rats returned to

> a control diet for two weeks.
> Around the same time, a study confirmed that bromine was building up in 
> humans. Researchers measured the serum levels of people in the United 
> Kingdom - where BVO was in use - and in their counterparts in the 
> Netherlands and Germany, where BVO was not used.
> "During this time UK citizens had higher bromine serum levels compared to 
> the inhabitants of Germany and the Netherlands," Vetter said. The largest 
> amounts of lipid-bound bromine were found in tissues from children in the 
> UK, according to the study.
> The study authors wrote that "it seems highly probable that the intake of 
> brominated vegetable oil is the cause of the tissue bromine residues in 
> children."
> Data in rats show that BVO could be toxic. A 1971 study by Canadian 
> researchers found that rats fed a diet containing 0.5 percent brominated 
> oils grew heavy hearts and developed lesions in their heart muscle. In a 
> later study, in 1983, rats fed the same oils had behavioral problems, and 
> those fed 1 percent BVO had trouble conceiving. At 2 percent, they were 
> unable to reproduce.
> The diets in that study had "whopping doses" of BVO, about 100-times 
> higher than today's allowable limit, said Vorhees, lead author of the 1983

> study.
> But two case studies in the past 15 years show that whopping doses also 
> can occur in people - with unhealthy consequences.
> Epic binges
> On MMO nights at the Battle & Brew, some gamers play 12 straight hours. In

> these Massively Multiplayer Online games, thousands of players from around

> the world compete. During these epic battles, a soda every hour is not 
> uncommon. A gamer chugging a 20-ounce bottle of soda every hour will 
> finish 3.5 liters in six hours.
> "They're just sitting for 12 hours, just pounding sodas," Smawley said.
> Virtually every teen in America plays video games, according to the Pew 
> Research Center. The $110-billion-a-year soft drink industry and the 
> $74-billion-a-year video game industry have noticed. Activision, the 
> makers of "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3," the latest edition in this 
> popular video game series, paired with Mountain Dew in a promotion that 
> rewards gamers with bonus points for drinking more Mountain Dew.
> In 1997, emergency room doctors at University of California, Davis 
> reported a patient with severe bromine intoxication from drinking two to 
> four liters of orange soda every day. He developed headaches, fatigue, 
> ataxia (loss of muscle coordination) and memory loss.
> In a 2003 case reported in Ohio, a 63-year-old man developed ulcers on his

> swollen hands after drinking eight liters of Red Rudy Squirt every day for

> several months. The man was diagnosed with bromoderma, a rare skin 
> hypersensitivity to bromine exposure. The patient quit drinking the 
> brominated soft drink and months later recovered.
> Reactions this severe may not be a concern in the general population, the 
> study's doctors said.
> "Any normal level of consumption of BVO would not cause any health 
> problems - except the risk of diabetes and obesity from drinking that much

> sugar water," said Zane Horowitz, medical director of the Oregon Poison 
> Center and author of the 1997 case study.
> But in the gamer scene, a normal level of consumption is not normal. 
> Everyone, it seems, knows someone habitually needing a fuel fix, and 
> consuming enough to up his or her risk.
> "I've seen hard core guys, after every game they'll just grab another 
> one," said Sean Hyatt, the assistant manager at the Battle & Brew.
> And it's not just the "stinkies" - Smawley's derogatory term for the 
> stereotypical gamer slobs - who pound gamer fuel. Vorhees, of the 
> Cincinnati children's hospital, said his son stays up all night when 
> playing a new game with his friends.
> "They use Mountain Dew specifically as a beverage to keep them awake - and

> they hardly eat anything," Vorhees said.
> When a person doesn't eat during one of these binges, his or her body is 
> absorbing the entire beverage. It's even worse in kids, Vorhees said, 
> because they have less body mass.
> "In kids, the total dosage effect tends to be greater," Vorhees said. "I 
> actually think there are people that get these high exposures."
> Banned bromine returns
> Based on data from the early studies, the FDA yanked brominated vegetable 
> oil from its Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) list for flavor additives

> in 1970, said Douglas Karas, a spokesman for the FDA. BVO bounced back 
> after studies from an industry group from 1971 to 1974 demonstrated a 
> level of safety.
> The Flavor Extract Manufacturers' Association petitioned the FDA to get 
> BVO back in fruit-flavored beverages, this time as a stabilizer, which is 
> its role today. After evaluating the petition and other data, the FDA in 
> 1977 approved the interim use of BVO at 15 ppm in fruit-flavored 
> beverages, pending the outcome of additional studies.
> "This decision was based on the highest No Observed Effect Levels from the

> existing safety studies and the estimated daily intake," Karas said in an 
> email. "Although there were doses that showed adverse effects in the 
> animal studies, there also were lower doses in which there were no adverse

> effects observed."
> As a condition of interim approval, the industry group submitted 
> additional safety studies to the FDA.
> The FDA determined that a 2-year feeding study in pigs established a 
> no-effect level of 1,200 ppm. A 2-year feeding study in beagle dogs also 
> was conducted. Although there were concerns about quality control with 
> that particular study, Karas said, no cardiovascular effects were observed

> in the dogs fed BVO at levels as high as 3,600 ppm for two years. After an

> independent audit of the data to address the quality concerns, the FDA 
> decided to allow BVO in fruit-flavored beverages."The finding from these 
> studies supported the safety of BVO in beverages at a level of 15 ppm in 
> fruit-flavored beverages," Karas said. "Its use as a flame retardant does 
> not preclude its use as a food ingredient so long as the food use is 
> safe."
> More than 30 years later, brominated vegetable oil's approval status is 
> still listed as interim. Changing the status would be costly and "is not a

> public health priority for the agency at this time," Karas said.
> Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the 
> Public Interest, was involved with the petition to remove BVO from the 
> "safe" list in 1970. He said it's time for the FDA to make a decision, one

> way or the other.
> "Is it harmful at the amounts consumed? Probably not," Jacobson said. "But

> it would be nice if the FDA did a thorough review of the literature and 
> finalized an approval or a ban."
> A safer switch?
> BVO has seeped into Europe, mostly forbidden territory for this additive, 
> according to an analysis of imported sodas presented at an international 
> symposium on halogenated persistent organic pollutants in 2010.
> "We found products with no label although BVO was present in the soda," 
> said Vetter, lead author of the study.
> He said soda makers in North America could easily replace BVO with 
> alternatives such as hydrocolloids - chemicals that are used in many sodas

> in Europe. Natural hydrocolloids form small droplets on water into which 
> non-water soluble compounds can be stored and stabilized for as long as 
> necessary. They are almost exclusively natural products, Vetter said.
> Barnes, of the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, said that BVO and hydrocolloids 
> "do not provide the same functionality and cannot be substituted for one 
> another."
> Vetter disagreed, saying that countries in Europe and elsewhere have used 
> natural hydrocolloids for decades in the soda brands that rely on BVO in 
> North America.
> "There are many options to substitute BVO with safe chemicals," Vetter 
> said. "I am not aware of significant disadvantages of BVO over 
> hydrocolloids or vice versa."
> With natural alternatives already in use in other countries, why not 
> switch in North America too?
> Wim Thielemans, a chemical engineer at the University of Nottingham in the

> United Kingdom, said since the alternatives are already used in Europe 
> "their performance must be acceptable, if not comparable, to the U.S.-used

> brominated systems." That means "the main driver for not replacing them 
> may be cost," he said.
> "It is a North American problem," Vetter added. "In the E.U., BVO will 
> never be permitted."
>
> Brett Israel is a researcher, writer and former intern at Environmental 
> Health News. 

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