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Coca-Cola Says Study Finds no Reasons for Illnesses WILL EDWARDS BRUSSELS -- Coca-Cola Co. said Monday that an independent report found no reason why drinks from plants in France and Belgium would have made about 200 people ill, while the European Commission said it will join inspections at the two bottling factories. Coca-Cola, meanwhile, bought advertisements in France to try to restore consumer confidence in its beverages. Some of the company's soft drinks remain off store shelves in Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and France. The health scare comes as Coca-Cola prepares for its peak selling season in Europe. Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc., Coca-Cola's largest bottler, last week said it traced contamination that made some consumers sick to carbon dioxide used at a plant in Antwerp, Belgium, and a fungicide found on the outside of cans filled in Dunkirk, France. Those explanations, though, were ruled out in a report by toxicologist Robert Kroes of the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands that was solicited by Coca-Cola and submitted Monday to the Belgian Ministry of Health. Concerning the Antwerp plant, the amounts of sulfur found in the glass bottles ``cannot, even in worst-case scenarios, explain the health concerns experienced,'' Kroes said in his report. And the amount of fungicide on the cans coming out of Dunkirk wasn't enough to cause any health effects, the toxicologist said. The health scare started almost two weeks ago, when 15 Belgian schoolchildren became ill after drinking Coke products. They complained of headaches, stomach aches and nausea. Atlanta-based Coke is trying to persuade French and Belgian regulators that it identified and eliminated the causes of the contamination. The European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, said it wants to inspect the two factories in question because it isn't satisfied with information supplied by Coke about the contamination, a spokesman said. Those visits will take place later this week. Coke booked full-page ads in newspapers such as business daily Les Echos and sports daily L'Equipe to claim that tests by its own scientists and in independent laboratories show the quality of its drinks is ``irreproachable.'' The company's moves come amid criticism it's been slow to react to a scare that's arrested some of its sales in its second largest market outside of the U.S. Chairman and Chief Executive Douglas Ivester, who flew to Belgium last week to oversee efforts to restore sales, met Monday with Coke employees in that country, a Coke spokesman said. The company may be gaining ground. Belgium's chief food inspector, Albert d'Adesky, sees no medical reason to maintain a ban on Coca-Cola's products in the country, said the Wall Street Journal Europe. D'Adesky said he would offer that advice to Belgium's health minister, Luc Van den Bossche, who Thursday kept in place the ban on the company's three main brands -- Coca-Cola, Fanta and Sprite -- yet allowed sales of drinks such as Nestea, Minute Maid and Bonaqua to resume. Belgian health ministry officials declined to comment. In France, officials there continue to advise stores not to sell Coca-Cola products made at the Dunkirk plant, even as initial tests failed to turn up abnormalities in samples. The tests continue. France last week allowed the sale of drinks bottled in Coke's Marseille plant to resume. |