A worrying story in today's online Guardian newspaper:
Soft drinks on sale in the UK have been found to contain benzene, a cancer-causing chemical. Benzene is produced when the drinks have the preservative sodium benzoate and vitamin added to them. The two can interact to form the carcinogen.
The Food Standards Agency ordered the soft drinks industry to survey its products last year when tests in the United States found benzene in soft drinks sold there. In tests of 230 products, levels of up to eight parts per billion were found in some drinks. The legal limit of benzene in drinking water is one part per billion. There are no legal limits on benzene in soft drinks. The brand names of drinks containing benzene have not been made available.
You can read more on this story at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,,1721479,00.html
