Coca-Cola and Pepsi Change Recipe To Avoid Cancer Warning 398
jones_supa writes "California has added 4-methylimidazole (a caramel coloring) to the list of carcinogenic compounds that require an explicit warning when added to foodstuffs. Incidentally, this has entailed the big two cola producers to modify their recipe to decrease the amount of the substance — just enough to avoid the warning. The change to the recipe has already been introduced in California but will be rolled out across the U.S. to streamline manufacturing. The American Beverage Association noted that there is not enough evidence to show the coloring to cause cancer in humans."
Re:Might as well go all the way (Score:5, Informative)
In California, correlation is sufficient to claim causation.
Re:California (Score:5, Informative)
Everybody knows that everything causes cancer in California.
True story! These labels are a total joke here - seems like every building and half the brands of cars have these stupid warning labels.
To those who are unfamiiar with this nonsense: if you buy a car in California, there's a good chance that a new car will come with a big sticker on the driver's side window - for your safety!
Re:California (Score:3, Informative)
Do people in Nevada get some sort of horrible sickness?
Many people in Nevada seem to suffer from horrible sickness, but it seems to increase the closer you get to Las Vegas. I'm certainly not ruling out a California connection, though.
Good chance they were already affected before they arrived. The southwest was a Mecca for people suffering Consumption (Tuberculosis) back in the day. While there is some dust, perhaps from mining, anything radioactive is probably in eastern Nevada or Utah. In dry air bacteria has a short lifespan. (This is why people may go years without suffering a cold out here.)
Re:Becareful coke addicts.. (Score:5, Informative)
stochastic just means random. it doesn't imply any particular type of distribution.
Re:Becareful coke addicts.. (Score:2, Informative)
Thats like saying 50cm2 of water will drown someone, so therefor if you give 1000 people 0.05cm2 of water then someone will drown...
As I said in the DUI story, quantity does actually have a valid position in all of this - the body can handle X as a safe dose, and that stands for pretty much everything going, its not a case of X is a safe probability...
If if takes 1000 doses to give a small creature such as a mouse cancer, then the only situation where 1/1000th of that dosage is going to give a human cancer is by coincidence or if the subject is pre-disposed to cancerous diseases in the first place.
Re:Becareful coke addicts.. (Score:5, Informative)
4-methylimidazole (Score:5, Informative)
...is also present in dark beers and roasted foods. It is one of many substances, like acrylamide, formed during browning. So, even if they avoid it in cola drinks, we can expect California warning labels on more foods and beverages. (California OEHHA proposed slapping a warning label on everything containing acrylamide about five years ago, but they got a lot of pushback on that one).
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:California (Score:5, Informative)
If virus was Latin, the plural would be either viri or virua (for the nominative or accusative forms)...
Except that virus in Latin has no attested plural and viri is always the plural to vir, meaning "man", cognate to the English word "wer" as in "werewolf". There's also a chance of virus actually having been a 4th declension noun (no one knows for sure today), and in that case, the English plural would have been "viruses" anyway.
Re:California (Score:4, Informative)
You are all incorrect. The plural for virus using classical latin is "vira". To wit:
"The plural of virus is viruses in English -- at least at the moment. Virus is a neuter noun in Latin. That means its plural, if there were an attested ancient usage of virus in the plural, would have ended in an "-a," because neuter nouns in (ancient Greek and) Latin end in an "-a," in the plural nominative and accusative cases. The example of the plural of datum is a case in point. Since datum is a neuter singular, its plural is data.
Since virus is neuter, vira is a possibility for the nominative/accusative plural. It could not be viri."
Thus, if a Prius is a gender neutral noun in latin, the plural form would be "Pria"