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PRESS RELEASE:
September 06, 2006
CSE rejects offer to meet Coca-Cola. Says process has been compromised
Had initially agreed to meet in good faith. But will not do so now,
since public policy is compromised
Believes these are nothing but efforts to delay and prevaricate on
standards
Sends Union health ministry point-by-point response. Says no substance
in the charge that CSE report is “inconclusive” or “inconsistent”
New Delhi, September 6, 2006: Protesting
the double standards of the soft drinks industry and the inordinate
delays in setting norms, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has
rejected an offer of a meeting extended by Coca-Cola.
On August 16, Coca-Cola had invited CSE to a meeting to discuss the
issue of pesticide residues in its products. CSE had, initially, agreed
to the meeting -- but on the condition that the agenda be confined to
regulations. Clarifying CSE’s position, its director Sunita Narain said:
“Our initial response of acceptance to the meeting was in good faith,
believing that the company was genuinely interested in a dialogue on how
the process of regulation and standard setting would move forward. But
recent events since then make it clear that public policy is being
compromised, and therefore, we cannot see the purpose of a meeting
between Coca-Cola and us.”
In its letter to the CEO of Coca-Cola India, CSE has explained why it
believes public policy has been compromised. The report of the expert
committee of the Union ministry of health and family welfare was “based
verbatim on the comments of the scientists that (the) company had flown
down from London.” Furthermore, CSE says its “response to the expert
committee report will make it clear that the evidence used to discredit
(its) report is based on what can be, at best, called misinterpretation
of scientific data and at worst, a deliberate and well-orchestrated
strategy to thrash (its) analysis and work”.
CSE has reiterated its concern that these tactics to delay and divert
are not new. It has reminded the Coca-Cola CEO how on March 29, 2006,
the critical meeting of the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) convened to
finalise standards for carbonated beverages was sought to be stymied.
How a letter dated the same day, written by the Union health secretary
asking for the standards to be deferred, was in the knowledge of the
cola majors. This evidence of collusion, CSE says, “shocked” all. But
sadly, nothing has changed. CSE’s letter makes it clear that this is an
effort to delay and prevaricate on notifying standards already finalised
by the BIS so that the process can move towards validation of the test
methodology.
CSE concludes: “In these circumstances, we have little to discuss with
your company. We therefore, offer you our regrets for not accepting your
offer to meet.”
CSE has also sent a detailed point-by-point rebuttal of the expert
committee report to the Union health ministry, which makes it amply
clear that this is nothing but a well-orchestrated campaign of
vilification.
The Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) had cleared and
endorsed every aspect of its 2003 study. CSE’s current study has
followed exactly the same methodology and given similar results -- and
yet this campaign is underway. “If anything, we have gone a step further
and reconfirmed our findings through a GC-MS as was suggested by the JPC.
We, therefore, believe that any further enquiry in this matter is
unwarranted and will divert the attention from the main issue:
regulation of these products,” says CSE.
After careful scrutiny of the report of the expert committee, CSE says
in its reply: “We do not accept that it is justified to say that our
report on pesticide residues is “inconclusive” or even “inconsistent”.
The fact is that there has been a careful and deliberate attempt to
misinterpret our report or to find fault where none exists”. CSE has
given three examples to elaborate its point:
The expert committee’s claim that the CSE report was “inconclusive” was
based on misinterpretation. The fact is that CSE has used the GC-MS
laboratory equipment to reconfirm the identity of the pesticides and not
to quantify it, as claimed by the ministry. In fact, CSE has used other
equipments – the GC-ECD and the GC-NPD – to identify, quantify and even
confirm the pesticides.
The expert committee’s claim that the CSE report is “inconsistent” is
based on incorrect understanding of tropical toxicology. The ministry’s
committee has parroted the contention of Coca-Cola sponsored scientists
that it is unlikely that the samples could have had residues of HCH
isomers or Heptachlor as it has been banned since 1996. CSE, in its
reply, has given detailed references of studies conducted by the
ministry’s own scientists, which have detected the same pesticides.
“Therefore, unless all studies done in India are wrong, the CSE study
cannot be dismissed as inconsistent,” says its reply.
The expert committee’s claim that the CSE report should not have found
Malathion shows complete disrespect and dismissal of the JPC report,
which had discussed this issue and resolved it clearly. It reveals that
the intent of the expert committee is not to conduct an impartial
enquiry but to persist in raising unwarranted issues against CSE and its
laboratory, and to discredit and harass its scientists.
CSE has appealed to the ministry that
standards for the final product should be notified urgently. “It is not
enough to issue advisories against the health aspects of soft drinks, it is
equally and more imperative that we set regulations so that people are
reassured of their safety”, says its letter to the ministry.
See the CSE letters to the
;
; and
at
http://www.cseindia.org/misc/cola-indepth/cola2006/cola-index.htm
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