Pesticide units slam CSE report on cola drinks

 Aspirin or Vitamin B tablets too could be fatal when 25 or more tablets consumed in less than 24 hours. "Common salt can be lethal at 4 grams per kilogram body weight," he said.
The APG chairman said most of the pesticides found in soft drinks were not used widely at present. "The report says that pesticides like DDT and heptachloride are present in soft drinks, but manufacture of these in India have stopped since 1990. Only one public sector outfit is manufacturing these items in very small quantities for malaria control," he claimed.

Pesticide residue in the soft drinks could have come from contaminated ground water, chairman of Crop Life, P K Mazumdar, said.

"Pesticides residue is there in ground water and so when we are drinking water we are taking in pesticides residue. The question is whether it is within limit or not and we feel pesticides residue in soft drinks is within maximum residue limit (MRL)," he added.