For example, one of its earliest variants – below – that circulated through email in 2011 vaguely stated that the incident had been covered on the mainstream news (it hadn’t.) lso in 2011, this religious-themed variant also advised readers to avoid drinking Pepsi for the same reason – only this time, in classic “friend of a friend” urban legend style, it claims the unknown author’s cousin first issued the warning.
Soon after, another variant falsely claimed the rumour had been confirmed by NDTv, an Indian television company. These variants also mentioned the incident also affected other products including Frooti Drinks and Coca Cola, though failed to explain why unrelated companies would also have been involved.
Despite the persistence of these silly warnings, they’re just untrue. It’s an example of scarelore – folklore designed to alarm readers unnecessarily. Not only have there been no reputable reports that someone attempted to taint Pepsi drinks in this way, according to every authority on the virus, HIV cannot survive for very long outside the human body.. The virus is extremely sensitive to changes in alkaline or acidity and given the acidic nature of Pepsi drinks, any HIV infected blood would be rendered incapable of passing on the virus to someone who later consumed a tainted bottle.
Additionally, the CDC also weighed in on the rumour, claiming that there is simply no risk of catching HIV from any type of food item. The claim that foodstuff is being nefariously used to carry the HIV virus – or some equally malicious disease – is a popular one, and has circulated in one form or another for a number of years.
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