Coming soon: graphic pictures of cancer patients on every can of Coke

At least, California would probably like to force Coke and Pepsi to put ugly, graphic, gross pictures of severely ill people on every can. But since they can’t:

Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo Inc. are changing the way they make the caramel coloring used in their sodas as a result of a California law that mandates drinks containing a certain level of carcinogens come with a cancer warning label.

The companies said the changes will be expanded nationally to streamline their manufacturing processes. They’ve already been made for drinks sold in California.

Well, hell, California’s only trying to protect its citizens from cancer. Other cancer-causing products have to carry warning labels. That’s the first thing this story brought to mind, in fact: the FDA trying (but failing) to force cigarette companies to print graphic pictures of lung cancer victims on their packages.

Small bit of irony, here:

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer advocacy group…

Remember that name. I’ll come back to it.

…in February filed a petition with the Food and Drug Administration to ban the use of ammonia-sulfite caramel coloring.

A spokesman for the Food and Drug Administration said the petition is being reviewed. But he noted that a consumer would have to drink more than 1,000 cans of soda a day to reach the doses administered that have shown links to cancer in rodents.

The American Beverage Association also noted that California added the coloring to its list of carcinogens with no studies showing that it causes cancer in humans. It noted that the listing was based on a single study in lab mice and rats.

A thousand cans of soda a day. Does it occur to the “Center for Science in the Public Interest” that anybody drinking a thousand cans of soda a day has bigger problems than a marginally higher risk of cancer?

Perhaps that has occurred to them, and they think fighting against this infinitesimal increase in cancer-causation is “in the Public Interest” anyway. In which case, a question: what about water poisoning? Tell you what, man: you drink 12,000 fluid ounces of water in a single day, you’re gonna get water poisoning.

Where’s the Center for Science in the Public Interest’s petition about that?

Previously:

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