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Consumer Reports arsenic probe ruffles chicken industry’s feathers
Story Date: 9/20/2012
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Source: Tom Johnston, MEATINGPLACE, 9/19/12
A Consumer Reports investigation into arsenic levels in rice misleads consumers about chicken feed, the National Chicken Council said today.
The probe centers on “worrisome” levels of arsenic found in more than 60 rice and rice products, but Consumer Reports also calls out animal production practices in the investigation and a press release announcing its completion.
“Consumers may be surprised to learn that similar to antibiotics, arsenic-containing drugs can be fed daily to chickens, turkeys, and pigs to promote growth, lower the levels of feed required, prevent disease in healthy animals, and color the meat,” Urvashi Rangan, CR’s director of safety and sustainability, said in the news release. “The manure of treated animals ends up containing arsenic too. It can also be used to fertilize food crops, which effectively introduces arsenic back into the food supply.”
Consumer Reports is urging the government to stop “the cycling of arsenic in our food and water,” Rangan said.
But the National Chicken Council said Consumer Reports’ insinuations are false.
“Chickens in the United States produced for meat are not given arsenic as an additive in chicken feed,” spokesman Tom Super said in a statement on the group’s website. “Some flocks used to be given feed that contained a product called Roxarsone, which included safet levels of organic arsenic. Even though the science shows that such low levels of arsenic do not harm chickens or the people eating them, this product was removed from the market last year, it is no longer manufactured, and it is no longer used in raising chickens in the United States. No other products containing any amount of arsenic are used in chicken productions.”
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