May 20 (Bloomberg) -- Soft-drink makers including Safeway Inc. are reformulating soda recipes after U.S. regulators said amounts of the cancer-causing chemical benzene found in five of 89 beverages tested exceeded allowable levels for drinking water.

Levels as high as 79.2 parts per billion were found in some of the sodas tested by the Food and Drug Administration in the past month, compared with federal rules specifying less than 5 parts per billion in drinking water. There is no legal limit on benzene in beverages other than water.

While the levels ``are low and not a health risk, they are avoidable,'' said Laura Tarantino, director of FDA's Office of Food Additive Safety, in a conference call with reporters late yesterday. ``We insist that everyone should be doing everything they can to avoid the formation of benzene.''

Animal testing has found that repeated exposures to benzene levels above 80 parts per million -- 1,000 times higher than the highest level the FDA found -- causes rapid destruction of bone marrow and various blood diseases. Public health would be best protected by keeping benzene levels below 0.15 part per billion, according to a scientific paper published by the state of California in 2001.

``It's 15 years too late,'' said Richard Wiles, senior vice president of the Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based advocacy organization that recently pressured the FDA to eliminate benzene from drinks. Testing in 1990 first revealed that some diet soft drinks may contain benzene.

The testing and recipe changes are ``a good start,'' he said.

Vitamin C Reaction

Benzene can form in drinks when vitamin C or a similar acid reacts with benzoates, chemicals that are used as preservatives and are naturally present in cranberry juice, the FDA said on its Web site.

Makers of the drinks are changing their recipes after the FDA contacted them about the benzene levels, Tarantino said. The reformulated drinks are Pineapple Crush, Safeway Select Diet Orange, Giant Light Cranberry Juice Cocktail, Crystal Light Sunrise Classic Orange and AquaCal Strawberry Flavored Water Beverage, she said.

Safeway changed its recipe in April, prior to the FDA contacting the company, spokeswoman Teena Massingill said. ``It's been a concern within the beverage industry, so we evaluated all of our soft drinks and found that we needed to reformulate that one,'' she said in a telephone interview yesterday.

Attempts to contact Kraft Foods Inc., maker of Crystal Light; Cadbury Schweppes Plc, maker of Crush; and Meridian Beverage Co., maker of AquaCal, after business hours were unsuccessful.

Detectable Levels

Most of the drinks tested, 54 of 84, had at least some detectable benzene. Tarantino said that even when the highest levels were found, such as the 79.2 parts per billion found in the Safeway Select Diet Orange drink, there was no health threat, as it was unlikely that people would drink very much of it.

A wide range of benzene concentrations was found in different lots and batches of the same drink. That might be the result of different amounts of heat exposure, Tarantino said.

``It should be that even under abuse conditions you shouldn't get elevated levels of benzene,'' Tarantino said. She said the agency is working with trade organizations to ensure that drink makers change their recipes to eliminate the chance of benzene creation.

To contact the reporter on this story: Steven Bodzin in San Francisco at sbodzin@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: May 20, 2006 01:27 EDT