The FDA Knows No Shame

So who is the FDA working for these days? I’ll give you a hint: It’s not you

What happens when it comes to the public’s attention (10 years after the FDA is made aware) that some products from multi-million dollar food product firms (soft drinks) contain high levels of a cancer causing chemical which has been directly linked to leukemia and known as the mother of all carcinogens ?? Well, if you’re the FDA, you tell everyone that benzene isn’t really dangerous. Even though the products in question contain levels of benzene that are FOUR TIMES HIGHER than what you’ve previously stated was the maximum allowed in drinking water!

I had to chuckle at the Washington Post’s headline “Soda Safe Despite Benzene: FDA: Chemical Present in Diet Soda, but Not Harmful” Just read that statement a few times, and you’ll come to understand just how bought and paid for the FDA really is. But the “big lie” routine was not what the FDA tired at first. No, first they tired to conceal the fact. They’ve know about this non-issue for 13 years. They first said that there was some…but oh, just a tiny- tiny bit of benzene in a few soft drinks (which they refused to name), but that it was not worth worrying about. Just last week the FDA stated that the levels of benzene found were “insignificant”. Now, after the publication of a report that showed the FDA’s own studies “.. found benzene at four times the tap-water limit, on average, in 19 of 24 samples of diet soda”, the FDA is claiming their studies “overestimated the amount of benzene”.

In the mean time, Great Britain's public health agency pulled some soft drinks off the shelf due to benzene contamination . But not the FDA. The FDA claims their own studies prove the benzene levels are safe (is their safe level of benzene the same as yours ?), but just don’t ask to see the data. That’s because they’re not releasing it yet. I’m sure they’re still looking for ways to spin the results.

It is suspected that the benzene is being created by a reaction between sodium or potassium benzoate and ascorbic acid (vitamin C). I say, just avoid the benzoate all together until this and the class actions get sorted out.