HIV Infected Blood In Pepsi

Circulating messages warn people not to drink Pepsi because a Pepsi worker has contaminated bottles with his HIV infected blood.


Brief Analysis
The claims in the messages are false. The contamination rumors have no basis in fact whatsoever and the warnings should not be forwarded.

Example of Messages:

Important message....for d next few days, do not drink any product from pepsi company like pepsi, tropicana juice, slice, 7up , coca cola, etc,,as a worker from the company has added his blood contaminated with HIV. watch NDtv ...please 4ward this 2 every 1 u care about.....please spread!




ALERT: JUST HEARD A PEPSI WORKER WHO AS INFECTED WITH HIV WAS PUTTING HIS INFECTED BLOOD INTO THE DAMN POP'S WHILE WORKING IN THE WARE HOUSE AND HE WAS EMPLOYED THERE FOR 5 YEARS! NASTY BASTARD NO MORE PEPSI FOR ME! SMDH PEOPLE)


To all my fellow facebook friends n family please do not drink pepsi from tha bottles a company worker has put his contaminated HIV blood in some of tha bottles thanks
Dont drink the pepsi products they are contaminated from blood from a HIV person 




Detailed Analysis
According to a series of breathless warnings that are currently flooding social media websites and are also circulating via email and text message, a worker at Pepsi has been deliberately contaminating bottles of the popular beverage with his own HIV infected blood.

However, there is not even a shred of truth to this silly story. If true, such a story would have been extensively reported by news outlets all around the world. And, of course, any potentially contaminated batches of Pepsi would have now been recalled. However, there are no credible news reports whatsoever that confirm the claims in the warning. Nor are there any recalls of Pepsi products due to potential HIV blood contamination.

In fact, the current spate of warnings is just another incarnation of a long running hoax that has falsely claimed that HIV infected blood has been added to various foodstuffs. Back in 2004, an emailed warning claimed that a man had been caught placing HIV contaminated blood in ketchup dispensers at fast food outlets. This hoax subsequently spawned several other ketchup or tomato sauce related variants in the years since. And in, 2006, another series of hoax messages wrongly claimed that a child was diagnosed with AIDS after eating contaminated take-away food prepared by a HIV positive cook who had cut his finger and bled while working in the kitchen. None of the claims outlined in any of these warning messages has ever been confirmed or supported by any credible source.

Moreover, the US based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that it has never received any reports of HIV infections caused by contaminated food. The CDC also points out that a person would not become infected even if they did consume food that contained HIV infected blood:

No incident of food being contaminated with HIV-infected blood or semen has been reported to CDC. Furthermore, CDC has received no reports of HIV infection resulting from eating food, including condiments.

HIV does not live long outside the body. Even if small amounts of HIV-infected blood or semen was consumed, exposure to the air, heat from cooking, and stomach acid would destroy the virus. Therefore, there is no risk of contracting HIV from eating food.

Thus, sending on such warnings will help no one and will achieve nothing other than clutter inboxes and social networks with even more utterly pointless nonsense. 


Source: http://www.hoax-slayer.com/pepsi-hiv-hoax.shtml