Health Article: Why You May Be Drinking Soda That Contains a Dangerous Flame Retardant Banned in Europe and Japan

[Guest guest]

> Environmental Health News/ By Brett Israel

>

>

http://www.alternet.org/story/153638/why_you_may_be_drinking_soda_that_contains_\

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 But some scientists say that limit is based on thin, outdated data,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

> 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, " 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

> 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,

> 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 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 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.

> son, 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, " son 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.

> , 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.