Pepsi Contaminated with AIDS?

Many messages are circulating the Internet claiming that a Pepsi worker has infected an undetermined number of bottles with the HIV virus.

DONT DRINK PEPSI PRODUCTS A MAN AT THE PEPSI PLANT PUT BLOOD CONTAMINATED WITH AIDS IN THE BOTTLES SOMEONE COMMENTED WITH THE WEB SITE THAT TALKS ABOUT THIS ISSUE........................

i jus got a text from my cousin sayin Do not drink any pepsi soda, a worker from the company has put blood contaminated with AIDS inside the bottles so yall please be careful cause its some sick people in dis world and the devil is busy so lets pray for people like that GOD BLESS.....

FWD: FWD: Please DO NOT drink any pepsi soda, a worker from that company has put blood contaminated with AIDs inside the bottles!!! Please forward!!

Such rumours are completely unsubstantiated and unfounded. Many large companies such as Pepsi are the subject to malicious rumours like this everyday, and this one appears to be a reimagining of an earlier rumour that claimed it was bottles of Ketchup that were contaminated with the HIV or AIDS virus.

In fact, rumours which implore avoiding certain drinks or foods because they are tainted is an extremely popular urban legend that has affected many different food and drink companies over the years.

This rumour specifically is of course false. For one, the HIV (or AIDS) virus cannot live outside the human body for very long at all, so drinking Pepsi - even if it was tainted with HIV infected blood - would very unlikely cause the recipient to become infected with the virus, especially considering the extremely acidic nature of the Pepsi drink.

Secondly, if there was any truth to the rumour, Pepsi would recall any drinks that may possibly have been infected, but alas they have not. Not recalling products that a company knows have been tainted with blood would represent a gross misconduct on behalf of that company which would likely be suspended by food standard bodies such as the FDA.

Thirdly, the messages fail to explain who this apparent disgruntled Pepsi worker is, or why he has not been arrested or prosecuted for such a malicious attack - or if that did not happen - how someone found out about his crimes and failed to notify the authorities.

And since the rumours fail to identify any sources, evidence or any other reason why they should be taken seriously, they should be discarded as yet another baseless attack on an otherwise innocent company.