FDA Admits that Chicken May Contain Cancer Causing Arsenic

According to the Food and Drug Administration, chicken meat could contain arsenic, although the agency is claiming the amount of cancer causing arsenic is too little to be dangerous.  On Wednesday June 8, the agency announced that one of its recent studies revealed an ingredient in chicken feed containing arsenic, called Roxarsone, may be present in parts of the chicken being consumed.  Previous studies had shown that the arsenic known to be present was eliminated through chicken waste prior to consumption.

The feed containing arsenic, which is made by Pfizer Inc, is being pulled off the market in the US prior to any forced recall by the FDA.  This feed has been used since the 1940's to kill parasites and promote growth.  It's also used as feed for swine and turkey, although currently discussions focus on chickens given that the FDA study only focused on chickens.

The FDA studied 100 chickens, finding that the chickens which had consumed Roxarsone, had higher levels of inorganic arsenic in their livers.  Inorganic arsenic, as opposed to naturally occurring organic arsenic, is considered much more toxic.  

The FDA did attempt to study arsenic levels in the muscle of the chicken as well, which is what the majority of people consume.  However, they ran into complications such that they were unable to complete that portion of the study, although they did expect to find 40x less arsenic in the muscle as opposed to the liver.

Why Consider Eating Organic Chicken Even After This Issue Is Addressed?

This ingredient has been used and considered safe for the past 70+ years.  Prior studies had "proven" it to be safe as it was supposedly eliminated from the chicken prior to consumption.  However, this recent study has proven the prior study wrong.  There are many other drugs, toxins, and poisons currently in use in feed to animals, spray on fruits and vegetables, use in genetically modified seeds, in our skin care products and more, each of which claim to have been tested and proven "safe" for use.  However, we can see that this is not always the case.  As a matter of fact, a study was done on studies which showed that among highly cited clinical research studies only 44% were proven correct by a second study providing the same result.  Of the remainder 16% were completely contradicted by the second study, while another 16% were found to have a significantly stronger affect than the initial study suggested.   The other 24% of highly cited studies had not been reproduced in order to be tested.  To cut the numbers a different way, excluding those highly cited studies that had not yet been reproduced to challenge their validity, of the highly cited studies that HAD BEEN reproduced, 21% were contradicted,  21% showed a stronger effect than initially believed, and ONLY 59% showed the same result.  So, 40% of the time the studies were wrong.   

Sources:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/08/arsenic-chicken_n_873299.html

http://www.naturalnews.com/032659_arsenic_chicken.html

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/2011-06-08-fda-chicken-arsenic_n.htm

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16014596 (Study on Studies)

Source: Manufacturer provided information.

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