Rockefeller,
chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, held
a hearing Wednesday to explore concerns about energy drink marketing to the
youth.
The
hearing comes after public health experts started raising serious and
disturbing questions about the use of energy drinks.
“As
energy drink marketing and sales to children have increased, there has been a
surge in emergency room visits associated with energy drinks,” said
Rockefeller.
Rockefeller
continued by stating that “in the first six months of this year, poison control
centers received about 1,500 reports involving energy drinks, more than half of
which involved children under the age of 18.”
Senior
executives from Monster Beverage, Red Bull and Rockstar defended their products
and told the US Senate’s Commerce Committee that the
ingredients are safe.
“Monster
is, and always has been, committed to ensuring that all of the ingredients in
its energy drinks, including caffeine, are safe and in regulatory compliance
for their intended use,” said Monster Beverage chief executive Rodney Sacks.
Rockefeller commented
on how health experts seem to disagree.
“Pediatricians
and other medical experts have been saying that high levels of caffeine found
in many of these drinks may pose health risks to young people such as heart
arrhythmia, increased blood pressure and dehydration,” he said.
Just
last month in response to increasing concerns, the American Medical Association
called for a ban on the marketing of energy drinks to children and teenagers.
“We’ve
taken the appropriate steps as a responsible company to investigate the
ingredients with scientists that have assured us that they are 100 percent safe
for the age bracket of 13 to 17,” said Rockstar co-owner Janet Weiner during
the hearing.
Long
before Wednesday’s hearing, committee members including Rockefeller had been
investigating the marketing tactics of energy drink companies to determine who
exactly they were targeting. Rockefeller announced those findings.
“That
while energy drink companies say they do not market to children, adolescent
consumer products are frequent targets for energy drink marketing practices,”
said Rockefeller.
Energy
drink company executives reassured lawmakers that they don’t encourage or
market to children, specifically under the age of 12, to use their
products in anyway, but that those 13 and up are safe to use the drinks.
Executives also stated they don’t encourage the rapid consumption of their
products either.
Members
of the committee argued those comments by showing several multimedia postings
by the companies which depicted the youth using the drinks.
Weiner
said she felt like energy drinks were being demonized by the negative attention
and believed the focus should be placed more on other drinks.
“We
feel that if you are going to look at caffeine , you must, in all fairness to
all of us, look at caffeine that’s coming to these teenagers from coffee,” she
argued.
The
committee gave no hints at following through with Weiner’s request, but
did ask if all three companies would go back and revisit their marketing
tactics. All three executives agreed that they would review
their company’s social media sites and pull down any posts that encourage
unhealthy consumption of energy drinks.
Rockefeller pointed out that
in the next few weeks the Institute
of Medicine
