[LoveUSA]

Even more frightening...

"Fifteen years ago," when U.S. Food and Drug Administration "scientists had found benzene, a known carcinogen, in some sodas and fruit drinks," the FDA said "'Trust us',"

Read more at

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Benzene_in_Soft_Drinks

[Mase]

Benzene is a known carcinogen that is found in many places. You get it from the water you drink, from the air you breathe and from odd sources like bananas and hamburgers. The FDA looked for benzene in seventy foods over a five year period and found it in 68 food items. Only vanilla ice cream and American cheese didn't offer any measurement of benzene.

The tolerance for benzene in the water supply is 5 ppb (only because modern filtration systems can't remove it any lower than that). Benzene was found in a number of sodas and fruit drinks years ago at more than this tolerance due to a reaction between sodium benzoate and vitamin C. Even so, these amounts were minute and well below levels that have been known to impact occupational workers. Even if you drank 120 liters of these sodas/fruit drinks per day you'd still be consuming less than the amount of benzene that has shown to have no effect on occupational workers. People living in most major cities in the US will get more benzene from the air they breathe than they will from the soda you cite from the FDA report that has you so alarmed.