ScienceDaily (Apr. 10, 2007) — Pets may not be the only organisms endangered by some food additives. An arsenic-based additive used in chicken feed may pose health risks to humans who eat meat from chickens that are raised on the feed, according to an article in the April 9 issue of Chemical & Engineering News, the weekly news magazine of the American Chemical Society.
Millions of pounds of roxarsone are mixed in chicken feed every year. The poultry industry, which makes more money for fatter chickens, has kept insisting that none of the arsenic stays in the chicken and therefore cannot be dangerous to humans. But recent studies have shown that a percentage of this arsenic stays in the chicken tissue and the rest is excreted in urine and chicken litter. Consumers cannot taste the arsenic as it is odourless and flavorless.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency , just 10 ppb ( parts per billion ) in tap water raises the percentage of cancer in people to one in 2000. But the arsenic allowed in chicken is between 500 and 2000 ppb per billion and this standard , set in 1945 has still not been revised!
Average chicken eaters may ingest 21 to 31 µg of arsenic everyday, which is much higher than the tolerable daily intake recommended by the World Health Organization.
There are two types of arsenic : organic and inorganic. Organic arsenic is less harmful directly. However, it turns inorganic in the presence of bacteria and becomes a killer. The chicken industry insists that roxarsone contains organic arsenic. However studies done by the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering in 2006 and by Partha Basu of the University of Duquesne University show that roxarsone arsenic becomes inorganic in less than 10 days. This is extremely dangerous , not just to the chicken eater who eats the inorganic arsenic in the bird meat but to everyone around. The magnitude of the health hazard can easily be gauged from the fact that , roxarsone, that is put in feed can degrade by mold and moisture into inorganic arsenic called trimethylarsine which is 2000 times more toxic than carbon monoxide. A study in Environmental Health Perspectives in 2006 say that a typical chicken eating adult may ingest 3.62 to 5.24 micrograms of inorganic arsenic daily .
Not only is Roxarsone Arsenic dangerous to humans ta ht consume chickens. Much of the chicken manure contains Arsenic and is then often used as fertilizer for other agricultural products. What is making me so mad is that the government knows about the use of this and other toxic chemicals in the raising of animals, but yet they do nothing to stop it. Eating meat for decades has in my opinion be the major contributor of many diseases. We are being poisoned and we don't seem to want to know. Anyone who knows half of the truth would in no way continue feeding their children animals products. It's just like giving them a poison pill every day and who would do that? Just because it's a chicken, or a steak or a hot dog does not mean it is actually food. In my opinion the lies and the secrets that have been kept about what is in processes food, and what is in meat is criminal and those responsible should be held accountable.
My only explanation why it is all kept from the masses is that if it all came out including studies that show the connection to many diseases, it would lead to loss of billions of dollars in business and jobs. The billion dollar lobbyist probably pay plenty to Washington to keep it all under wraps.
POULTRY INDUSTRY: Prairie Grove Suit Focuses on Roxarsone Link
January 4, 2004
It was a gut-wrenching sight, watching a group of Prairie Grove residents take the stage and reveal the most painful experiences of their lives. They spoke of dead children, rare cancers and devastated families.
Lawyers Hunter Lundy and Clayton Davis helped orchestrate the Dec. 16 news conference in Fayetteville, hoping to drive home the point that the poultry industry is to blame for much of the illness in Prairie Grove. The same day, they filed a lawsuit on behalf of 12 Prairie Grove residents against poultry companies in Northwest Arkansas.
The lawsuit will pivot on an obscure chemical called Roxarsone, a feed-additive for chickens. Lawyers and their experts say Roxarsone is causing cancer cases in Prairie Grove, including those of defendants in the case.
If the allegations are affirmed, they could have a farranging impact on the poultry industry, which commonly uses Roxarsone. John Baker, a Fayetteville lawyer working on the lawsuit, said other communities are experiencing the same problems as Prairie Grove, but haven’t filed lawsuits.
Rod O’Connor, a former chemistry professor at Texas A&M University who was hired by Lundy and Davis, said Roxarsone is the crucial link between cancer cases in Prairie Grove and chicken litter spread around the town of 2,540 people. "Now we’ve actually got the scientific proof," O’Connor said. He tested dozens of homes in Prairie Grove and found traces of Roxarsone in more than 95 percent of them, he said. That Roxarsone degrades into arsenic, he alleges, and causes cancer. His testing found elevated levels of arsenic in the homes as well, he said.
