
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, June 18, 1993                   TAG: 9306180111
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

PEPSI-TAMPERING CLAIMS DISCREDITED AT LEAST 9 NOW ARRESTED IN `VICIOUS CYCLE'

No reports of tampering with Diet Pepsi-Cola cans have been confirmed, the Food and Drug Administration said Thursday, dismissing the idea of any nationwide meddling with soda cans.

"Reports of possible tampering breed additional reports," said FDA Commissioner David Kessler. "It is a vicious cycle. That is what we believe happened here."

"On the basis of the information we have so far, the notion that there has been a nationwide tampering of Diet Pepsi is unfounded," Kessler said at a news conference.

He said the conclusion was based on investigators' judgment, logic and forensic analyses.

Kessler also said peoople who have made claims to have found objects in Pepsicans are recanting.

At least nine people have been arrested. Most of the arrests were made on a federal charge of filing false claims of product tampering, punishable by five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. "I would not be surprised if there were other additional arrests," Kessler said.

"Let me stress one point, and I am serious about this: We will prosecute false reports of tampering," Kessler said.

In day-and-night work since the reports of possible tampering started, "we have been unable to confirm even one case of tampering," Kessler said.

Network television news shows on Thursday aired a Pepsi-supplied surveillance videotape, shot at an unidentified Colorado grocery store, purporting to show a woman putting a syringe into an open can of Diet Pepsi while at the checkout counter, and later claiming the can had been tampered with.

"We are releasing it to show how easy it is to tamper with a product and how easy it is to get caught," Pepsi spokesman Andrew Giangola said.

The first report came June 9, when an 82-year-old man in Tacoma, Wash., said he peered into a can of Diet Pepsi to find out if he'd won a prize and found a syringe. Soon after, similar reports came pouring in.

The FDA and Pepsi-Cola would not release numbers, but media accounts compiled by The Associated Press indicate more than 50 reports of tampering in at least 23 states had been made by Wednesday night.

by CNB