New York Times - Arsenic in Our Chicken?

[Nathan McCorkle]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/05/opinion/kristof-arsenic-in-our-chicken.html
"
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Arsenic in Our Chicken?
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: April 4, 2012

Let’s hope you’re not reading this column while munching on a chicken sandwich.

That’s because my topic today is a pair of new scientific studies
suggesting that poultry on factory farms are routinely fed caffeine,
active ingredients of Tylenol and Benadryl, banned antibiotics and
even arsenic.

“We were kind of floored,” said Keeve E. Nachman, a co-author of both
studies and a scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Center for a
Livable Future. “It’s unbelievable what we found.”

He said that the researchers had intended to test only for
antibiotics. But assays for other chemicals and pharmaceuticals didn’t
cost extra, so researchers asked for those results as well.

“We haven’t found anything that is an immediate health concern,”
Nachman added. “But it makes me question how comfortable we are
feeding a number of these things to animals that we’re eating. It
bewilders me.”

Likewise, I grew up on a farm, and thought I knew what to expect in my
food. But Benadryl? Arsenic? These studies don’t mean that you should
dump the contents of your refrigerator, but they do raise serious
questions about the food we eat and how we should shop.

It turns out that arsenic has routinely been fed to poultry (and
sometimes hogs) because it reduces infections and makes flesh an
appetizing shade of pink. There’s no evidence that such low levels of
arsenic harm either chickens or the people eating them, but still...

Big Ag doesn’t advertise the chemicals it stuffs into animals, so the
scientists conducting these studies figured out a clever way to detect
them. Bird feathers, like human fingernails, accumulate chemicals and
drugs that an animal is exposed to. So scientists from Johns Hopkins
University and Arizona State University examined feather meal — a
poultry byproduct made of feathers.

One study, just published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal,
Environmental Science & Technology, found that feather meal routinely
contained a banned class of antibiotics called fluoroquinolones. These
antibiotics (such as Cipro), are illegal in poultry production because
they can breed antibiotic-resistant “superbugs” that harm humans.
Already, antibiotic-resistant infections kill more Americans annually
than AIDS, according to the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

The same study also found that one-third of feather-meal samples
contained an antihistamine that is the active ingredient of Benadryl.
The great majority of feather meal contained acetaminophen, the active
ingredient in Tylenol. And feather-meal samples from China contained
an antidepressant that is the active ingredient in Prozac.

Poultry-growing literature has recommended Benadryl to reduce anxiety
among chickens, apparently because stressed chickens have tougher meat
and grow more slowly. Tylenol and Prozac presumably serve the same
purpose.

Researchers found that most feather-meal samples contained caffeine.
It turns out that chickens are sometimes fed coffee pulp and green tea
powder to keep them awake so that they can spend more time eating. (Is
that why they need the Benadryl, to calm them down?)

The other peer-reviewed study, reported in a journal called Science of
the Total Environment, found arsenic in every sample of feather meal
tested. Almost 9 in 10 broiler chickens in the United States had been
fed arsenic, according to a 2011 industry estimate.

These findings will surprise some poultry farmers because even they
often don’t know what chemicals they feed their birds. Huge food
companies require farmers to use a proprietary food mix, and the
farmer typically doesn’t know exactly what is in it. I asked the
United States Poultry and Egg Association for comment, but it said
that it had not seen the studies and had nothing more to say.

What does all this mean for consumers? The study looked only at
feathers, not meat, so we don’t know exactly what chemicals reach the
plate, or at what levels. The uncertainties are enormous, but I asked
Nachman about the food he buys for his own family. “I’ve been studying
food-animal production for some time, and the more I study, the more
I’m drawn to organic,” he said. “We buy organic.”

I’m the same. I used to be skeptical of organic, but the more
reporting I do on our food supply, the more I want my own family
eating organic — just to be safe.

To me, this underscores the pitfalls of industrial farming. When I was
growing up on our hopelessly inefficient family farm, we didn’t
routinely drug animals. If our chickens grew anxious, the reason was
perhaps a fox — and we never tried to resolve the problem with
Benadryl.

My take is that the business model of industrial agriculture has some
stunning accomplishments, such as producing cheap food that saves us
money at the grocery store. But we all may pay more in medical costs
because of antibiotic-resistant infections.

Frankly, after reading these studies, I’m so depressed about what has
happened to farming that I wonder: Could a Prozac-laced chicken nugget
help?
"

--
Nathan McCorkle
Rochester Institute of Technology
College of Science, Biotechnology/Bioinformatics

[Simon Quellen Field]

OK, so the levels of arsenic in the chicken were not enough to cause any

health concerns, but were enough to reduce infections in the chickens.

It sounds like we should all start adding small amounts of arsenic to our diets,

unless we get enough of it in our chicken.

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[Nathan McCorkle]

On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 10:55 PM, Simon Quellen Field
<sfi...@scitoys.com> wrote:
> OK, so the levels of arsenic in the chicken were not enough to cause any
> health concerns, but were enough to reduce infections in the chickens.
>
> It sounds like we should all start adding small amounts of arsenic to our
> diets,
> unless we get enough of it in our chicken.
>

Going on that:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hormesis#2004_Taiwan_cobalt-contaminated_steel

[Jordan Miller]

does arsenic undergo biologic accumulation like I thought mercury
does? if so, this tends to accumulate more in species toward the top
of the food chain (e.g. humans) at higher and therefore more dangerous
concentrations.

jordan

[Cathal Garvey]

I'm not qualified to offer a verified answer, but I'm pretty sure it does.

--
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twitter.com/onetruecathal
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PGP Public Key: http://bit.ly/CathalGKey

[Simon Quellen Field]

Have you measured the arsenic levels in your blood?

If you don't have high enough levels, perhaps you are not eating enough

chicken. If the levels are higher than optimal, there are standard methods

for fixing that. But even heavy metals gradually leave your body over time.

We are, as the original article said, talking about levels that are so low that

they have no medical effects on humans, but apparently have beneficial

effect on chickens. You may have to eat your weight in chickens to get the

same benefits.

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[Nathan McCorkle]

Your link doesn't work, it shows up as "http://goog_921276603/"

The article didn't specifically mention it helped the chickens, rather
that it made them /look/ healthy

[Daniel C.]

One of the side effects of arsenic poisoning is paler skin and redder
lips, which (in some circles, at least) is considered beautiful. So
it may help humans look better (if not healthier) too.

[Simon Quellen Field]

Interesting that the link got split at the new line.

If you click on the second half of the link, it will work.

The part of the article I was referring to was this:

" It turns out that arsenic has routinely been fed to poultry (and sometimes hogs) because it reduces infections "

It appears that you only remembered the second half of that sentence:

" and makes flesh an appetizing shade of pink. "

:-)

My comments reflect my general disdain for this kind of journalism.

It is what caused the maker of 'pink slime' to go out of business, laying off 300

employees, because some group picked a nasty sounding name for their product.

The conclusion the article suggested, that we all eat expensive organic foods

instead, as if we could grow enough food for 6.8 billion people that way, is as bad

as any suggestion Marie Antoinette made about what the poor should eat.

We could write an equally factual article about the cyanide we found in organic

apricots and apples, stating that “We were kind of floored,” and

 “It’s unbelievable what we found.” despite the fact that it is quite easily

believable. Other comments are equally stupid:

“We haven’t found anything that is an immediate health concern,” Nachman added. “But it makes me question how comfortable we are feeding a number of these things to animals that we’re eating. It bewilders me.”

If there is no health concern, why suggest that everyone buy food that is more expensive

because the chemicals in it passed through animals instead of through fertilizer plants?

Chemical tests are very sensitive. Farmers in China are apparently feeding Prozac to

chickens. A 30 day supply of fluoxetine would cost more than the chicken. Did they

re-test at a different lab to make sure there was no contamination? Did they retest

different chickens to see if that one chicken happened to eat the pill the farmer

dropped by accident?

They say that trace amounts of acetaminophen were also found. Should I worry?

Millions of people dose themselves with amounts thousands of times higher on a

daily basis. Benadryl was also found. They say it reduces anxiety in chickens, and

apparently in doses small enough that it is cost-effective to feed to chickens that

wholesale for 59 cents a pound (USDA data). Don't you want your chickens to be

happy? Are you some kind of sadist? :-)

The USDA data also show that organic chickens sell for $2.48 per pound. Why would

a farmer feed chickens expensive pharmaceuticals if not doing so would raise the

price they could get for the chicken four-fold? Because few consumers are willing to

pay four times the price for a chicken that has no 'immediate health' benefits.

The part the article only mentions much later, almost as an afterthought, is more

important. Analyzing feather-meal can test for banned antibiotics. Government

inspectors should do this routinely, because there are good reasons for not allowing

antibiotics to be used in chicken farming. There are laws against it, but apparently

they are not being perfectly enforced. If this testing is cheap (it is), it should be used

so that scofflaws are caught and the practice is eliminated.

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[Dan Wright]

Common knowledge arsenic is a poison. Big corp farming Con Agra put in feed anyway to kill parasites. Great idea, right up there with feeding cattle brains turning then into mad cow carnivores. Right up there with ammonia  saturated pink slime and dousing our food and rivers with atrazine, an estrogen mimicker banned in Europe.   

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has classified arsenic as Group A; a human carcinogen, based on sufficient evidence from human data including increased lung cancer mortality in multiple human populations exposed primarily through inhalation, increased mortality from multiple internal organ cancers (liver, kidney, lung, bladder), and increased skin cancers observed in populations exposed to arsenic in drinking water  

The link is all you want to know about arsenic from California.  We have a law called Prop 65 which requires notice to consumers of products that cause cancer or reproductive toxicity.  It allows you to sell anything, no mater how dangerous, as long as you warn.

http://oehha.ca.gov/air/toxic_contaminants/pdf_zip/Arsenic_PostSRP3.pdf
Sent from my iPhone

[Daniel C.]

On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 3:14 PM, Dan Wright <djwr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has classified arsenic as Group A;
> a human carcinogen, based on sufficient evidence from human data including
> increased lung cancer mortality in multiple human populations exposed
> primarily through inhalation, increased mortality from multiple internal
> organ cancers (liver, kidney, lung, bladder), and increased skin cancers
> observed in populations exposed to arsenic in drinking water

They probably also give those chickens dihydrogenmonoxide (DHMO).
This is a chemical which is used in many industrial applications
(including nuclear reactors!) and which causes thousands if not
millions of deaths every year. It is also regularly found in drinking
water in all parts of the world, but especially in the US - where we
also add toxins like flourine to our water. It is regularly found in
the excised tumors of cancer patients, and is the major component in
acid rain. I think we should be just as concerned about consuming too
much DHMO as we are about the amount of arsenic in our chickens.

This link tells you all you want to know about DHMO:

http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html

-Dan

[Jordan Miller]

> If there is no health concern, why suggest that everyone buy food that is more expensive
> because the chemicals in it passed through animals instead of through fertilizer plants?

This is the same argument used to justify the dumping of hexavalent chromium into water supply as depicted in Erin Brockovich. Also, lookup thalidomide if you want to see where this lax thinking -- "show me the proof" -- has led people astray.

The reason it is a concern now is that health effects are often not known until it is "too late" -- e.g. until someone has contracted an incurable illness from it. especially with things as strong as arsenic. and it is really really difficult to trace it all the way back to the source of the toxin if it is in the food supply at these across-the-board levels. So history has taught us its better to err on the side of fewer chemicals than more chemicals.

jordan

[Simon Quellen Field]

Arsenic is 'natural'.

That makes it better than 'chemicals'.

The argument that growing stuff with nitrogen fixed by bacteria in cow guts

is better than growing stuff in nitrogen fixed by the Haber process is one

that has not been proved. I would argue that there are more potential

pathogens in cow manure than in ammonium nitrate. And more pharmaceuticals.

The article said that there were no health risks, not that none were known.

We have known about arsenic for a long time. And hormesis implies that the

baby aspirin I take to keep my heart healthy should be thought of more as a

vitamin than a toxin. They are feeding the arsenic to the chickens to improve

their health. It is not being put in there to kill them or make them sick, and in

fact it does neither.

My complaint is that too many people make bad decisions based on this kind of

bad logic. Don't eat apples, they contain cyanide. The same people who worry

about arsenic in their chicken drive cars, and are much more likely to die from

that than from anything they eat. The pollution they create that way is much more

dangerous than the levels of arsenic needed to keep chickens healthy. The amount

of money we spend on organic produce could keep millions from starving, but we

choose to spend the money on an untested belief that organic produce will keep

us safe from some unspecified and unquantified danger.

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[Jordan Miller]

no one is stopping you from quantifying it. what would be a good way to do so?

jordan

[Daniel C.]

On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 4:01 PM, Jordan Miller <jrd...@gmail.com> wrote:
> this lax thinking -- "show me the proof" -- has led people astray.

So we should just react blindly to every scare column that's printed,
without any proof that there's truth behind their claims?

> The reason it is a concern now is that health effects are often not known until it is "too late"

But the health effects of human consumption of arsenic at these levels
*are* known. The health effect is zero. Nonexistent. This is known.
It's not speculation - it is KNOWN.

> history has taught us its better to err on the side of fewer chemicals
> than more chemicals.

I'm going to start eliminating chemicals from my body right now. I
think I'll start with O2.

-Dan

[Simon Quellen Field]

By 'chemicals', what exactly do you mean?

I don't necessarily want fewer proteins, sugars, fats, vitamins, minerals,

etc., and those are all chemicals.

In fact, the entire mass of the chicken is chemicals, so eliminating all of

them leaves me nothing.

Do you want all traces of selenium removed from the chicken?

The LD50 is between 12 and 38 mg/kg.

The LD50 for arsenic is much higher at 185 to 6400 mg/lg.

So selenium is many times more toxic.

And yet it is essential to your living past the next few weeks.

Small amounts of arsenic are recommended for the health of the chicken.

But because people think it is a poison, they are afraid of it in their food.

But there is belladonna in your organic tomatoes and potatoes, and yet that

is OK with you. It also is more deadly than arsenic.

If 'chemical' means 'stuff I don't know about', then there are far more chemicals

in 'organic' fertilizer than in ammonium nitrate. Not only does it contain

pathogenic live organisms that frequently kill people who eat uncooked

produce in their salads, but it includes millions of molecules that are not

listed on the label, and in varying proportions that are not standardized or

even measured.

As it happens, I raise my own organic chickens. I eat the eggs they produce.

They run around the farm and eat things out of our compost heap, and they

eat the maggots in the alpaca dung. They scratch in the dirt constantly. And

what is in the dirt? More arsenic than was measured in the feather-meal that

the article discussed. Why? Because all dirt has arsenic in it. It is a common

element. There is lead in there too, and mercury. And the eggs taste great.

But you forget that we were talking about levels of these micronutrients that

are good for you. We see this all the time -- there is an optimal amount of

alcohol you should ingest for your health. I have already mentioned aspirin

for its heart benefits. Selenium and arsenic also have non-zero optimal

doses.

The reason we talk about these things on a science-oriented list is that bad

journalism hurts people. And we scientists must try to undo the damage by

explaining the science to people who might think that the New York Times

makes it true by printing this nonsense to sell more newspapers.

Fear sells newspapers. Don't fear your food.

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On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 4:13 PM, Jordan Miller <jrd...@gmail.com> wrote:

now you see why people err on the side of fewer chemicals in their foods rather than more. the studies are almost impossible to finance and prove either way. yet we have many many tragic examples of food supply contamination or drugs causing irreparable harm to individuals that we find out about decades later.

remember melamine?

jordan

On Apr 24, 2012, at 5:02 PM, Simon Quellen Field <sfi...@scitoys.com> wrote:

I'm not sure I understand.

How would you quantify something that is unspecified?

What danger is organic food saving people from?

Do I have to follow organic food eaters until they die to see if they live

longer than non-organic food eaters? The fact that they can afford to eat

organic means they are wealthier than most people, which might also skew

the data.

[Jordan Miller]

I guess we can agree to disagree.

cheers,

jordan

[Cory Geesaman]

Will you join me in the fight against dihydrogen monoxide?  It is a terrible, widely used chemical - the WHO reports that in 2004 alone 388,000 people died of this nasty stuff.

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[Nathan McCorkle]

On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 9:06 PM, Jordan Miller <jrd...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I guess we can agree to disagree.
>
> cheers,
> jordan

Realistically/scientifically though, that isn't a valid answer, if proof exists.

> On Apr 24, 2012, at 8:05 PM, Simon Quellen Field <sfi...@scitoys.com> wrote:
>
> By 'chemicals', what exactly do you mean?
> I don't necessarily want fewer proteins, sugars, fats, vitamins, minerals,
> etc., and those are all chemicals.
> In fact, the entire mass of the chicken is chemicals, so eliminating all of
> them leaves me nothing.
>
> Do you want all traces of selenium removed from the chicken?
> The LD50 is between 12 and 38 mg/kg.
> The LD50 for arsenic is much higher at 185 to 6400 mg/lg.
> So selenium is many times more toxic.
> And yet it is essential to your living past the next few weeks.
>
> Small amounts of arsenic are recommended for the health of the chicken.
> But because people think it is a poison, they are afraid of it in their
> food.
> But there is belladonna in your organic tomatoes and potatoes, and yet that
> is OK with you. It also is more deadly than arsenic.

Simon has a point, but only gives the LD50 for the compounds, rather
than the recommended daily allowance (RDA, the easiest metric I could
find for this sort of thing, it may not be up to date though)
http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/selenium-HealthProfessional/

Arsenic
http://www.ead.anl.gov/pub/doc/arsenic.pdf
"The acute lethal dose to humans can be about 2 to 20 mg/kg body
weight per day (mg/kg-day)"
"Ingesting small amounts over time produces chronic effects such as
skin darkening and formation of corns, damage to peripheral nerves,
cardiovascular system effects, hair and appetite loss, and mental
disorders. "
"Arsenic can also cause reproductive/developmental effects, including
spontaneous
abortions and reduced birth weights. Epidemiological studies indicate an
association between arsenic concentrations in drinking water and increased
incidences of skin, liver, kidney, lung, and bladder cancers"
" Limited information is available on the joint toxicity of
arsenic with other chemicals. For neurological effects, the predicted
direction of
joint toxicity of arsenic and lead is greater than additive, whereas
the joint toxicity
of these metals is predicted to be less than additive for the kidney and
hematopoietic (blood-forming) system."

And they've established toxicity dose-response effect guidelines
Cancer Risk
Inhalation UR
4.3 per
mg/m3

Oral SF
1.5 per
mg/kg-day

Non-Cancer Effect
Oral RfD
0.0003
mg/kg-day


Sooo, what the NYT article lacks is the concentrations found.

[Dan Wright]

The problem is lack of data. In Europe they have implemented a program called Reach to verify that chemicals are safe before they are widely used in consumer products. China is implement ing a similar system.

One of the main reasons for developing and adopting the REACH Regulation was that a large number of substances have been manufactured and placed on the market in Europe for many years, sometimes in very high amounts, and yet there is insufficient information on the hazards that they pose to human health and the environment. There is a need to fill these information gaps to ensure that industry is able to assess hazards and risks of the substances, and to identify and implement the risk management measures to protect humans and the environment.

In the US we are the free country, although we cannot go to Cuba and spend a penny. We are free to contaminate consumer goods with detrimental substances until it is proven to a scientific certainty it is dangerous.

Simon provided Lethal Dose 50 info. That is the dose that kills 50% of the animals exposed in a short time period. It is an acute fatal dose.

The number we need is what dose causes cancer or other harm? What dose causes cancer in those with Brca1&2. What dose epigeneticly demethylizes oncogenes? What dose is acceptable when that arsenic is mixed with all the other carcinogens we ingest? What dose changes the epigenome and passes the damage on to subsequent generations?

Anyway I look at it, feeding chicken or people arsenic is asinine.

Sent from my iPhone

[Simon Quellen Field]

How about feeding them selenium?

It is more toxic.

But a related question is whether you also won't allow the chickens to have aspirin,

acetaminophen, fluoxetine, or diphenhydramine. Those were all lumped in with

arsenic as terrible things to be feeding chickens, presumably because people who

eat the chickens might get an unspecified dose.

There is often an assumption that if something is a poison, then no amount of it

should be allowed in food. For some reason, the people who make this error the most

also make exceptions for atropine, scopolamine, ethanol, sodium chloride, selenium,

radioactive potassium, hydrogen cyanide, hydrogen peroxide, phosphorus, salicylates

and many other toxins commonly found in organically grown produce and other products.

If any of the molecules in food were listed on the label by their names, they would be

feared as 'chemicals' by those people. Which kills more people, arsenic in chickens, or

fructose in half the items in the supermarket? Robert Lustig would tell you that anyone

who fed fructose to chickens or people is asinine. But you ate some today (and some arsenic).

For every molecule, there is an optimal dose. If you get too much, it is harmful, and if

you don't get enough it is harmful. Aspirin, ethanol, radioactivity, sunlight, and many

more such things are beneficial in the right dose, and eliminating them comes with

peril. We even find that parasites and pathogenic bacteria are necessary to prevent

autoimmune disorders, since we have evolved with them, and they keep our immune

systems in check.

Someone on the list complained about the ammonia used to disinfect the defatted meat

additive now relabeled 'pink slime'. As if any of it remained after processing, and as if

your own body didn't produce far more of it every day than you would eat if your entire

diet was hamburger meat. This was a product that took waste cuttings from the meat

processing, removed the fat that people were afraid of, was disinfected with a safe

volatile disinfectant to make sure no deadly organisms were in it, and added to ground

beef to raise the protein levels, reduce the fat, reduce the cost to consumers, and save

a lot more cattle from being slaughtered by increasing the efficient use of the food from

each one. People die from ground meat that has not been disinfected, and some really

good methods for disinfecting meat, such as x-rays, electron beams, or gamma rays are

ruled out by this same silly fear because it is 'radiation', and any amount of that is an

asinine thing to use on food.

Don't fear your food.

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[Simon Quellen Field]

The article also does not say what the form of the arsenic was.

Arsenites and arsenic trioxide are much more toxic than arsenates.

It's like saying something had copper in it, without saying whether it

is the copper gluconate in my vitamin pill or the copper sulfate in my

fungicide.

The non-cancer dose you list is 0.3 parts per billion.

The EPA allows 10 parts per billion in drinking water, not based on any

science, just based on the fact that levels below that could not be measured

with currently available technology.

Rice grown in the US has an average of 260 parts per billion of arsenic in it.

It is a good thing no one is asinine enough to eat that stuff.

Want to bet that there is more arsenic in the rice than in the chicken?

An entire lifetime of drinking water with 17 parts per billion is associated with

a lifetime skin cancer risk of 1 in 10,000. So clearly eating a chicken occasionally

will give you cancer. And you'll win the lottery.

-----

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[Nathan McCorkle]

I took the pink slime comment to mean borax+glue slime... didn't know it was referring to food.

While we did evolve to handle the toxins you mention Simon, and even require to live... I'm still not sure arsenic is required.

The drugs found weren't quoted with their concentrations, so it could be that the water used for the chicken feed was contaminated, I don't think it actually means they fed those drugs to those chickens

That's said, if they were feeding those drugs, and you cite high drug costs as a factor for why they wouldn't, I could definitely see the purity of said drugs being a bigger issue... in U.S. drug law, animal drugs have less restrictions on quality and purity, the biggest example is that aluminum containers are not allowed in human drug manufacture, but are OK for animal drug manufacture.

Maybe its just time to develop soylent green, I.e. food that is completely engineered to avoid unnecessary "toxins". Atropine, scopalamjne aren't bad in the tomato and potato doses, but they are still taxing on the immune system.... whether that tax is required to maintain function I don't know, it could just be low noise to out immjmr systems that is totally unrequired. Why waste the carbon on noise toxins, if it could be sugars?

[Nathan McCorkle]

You'really leaving out the per kilogram part of the doses, or in water the per liter.... with your logic I could get the same amount drinking a dropful of water that I would get drinking 5 gallons

[Simon Quellen Field]

No I wasn't.

1 mg per kg is 1 part per million.

Since water was listed in parts per billion, I simply converted all the mg/kg

values into a common label.

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[Nathan McCorkle]

On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 1:24 PM, Simon Quellen Field <sfi...@scitoys.com> wrote:
> No I wasn't.
> 1 mg per kg is 1 part per million.
> Since water was listed in parts per billion, I simply converted all the
> mg/kg
> values into a common label.

ahh, I have to use ppm this week for a lab, coming from using
concentrations in molecules (molarity), it is hard to grasp why ppm
was ever conceived as a unit... but alas, I guess its pretty common!

[mad_casual]

On Tuesday, April 24, 2012 2:14:43 PM UTC-5, Roninlaw wrote:

Great idea, right up there with feeding cattle brains turning then into mad cow carnivores.

Big corp farming wasn't responsible for feeding cattle beef trimmings. (In the U.S.)It's usually frowned upon by big corp farming (if not outright banned) to have the trimmings of slaughtered animals fed to livestock. Feeding a cow the trimmings from slaughter is much more expensive than feeding them the equivalent in grain. The only place this isn't true is on smaller farms where the people doing the slaughtering live on or next to the farm or in regions of the world (Europe) where protein-rich grain (soy) is less abundant.

[mad_casual]

Aflatoxin in peanut butter? Check.

Mercury in vaccines? Check.

Mercury in tuna? Check.

Arsenic in Chicken? Check.

BSE in Beef? Check.

Consuming it all in spite of the risks? Check.

Of note; Brand name peanut butters are lowest in aflatoxin as their production processes are more efficient and they dilute out the aflatoxin with things like palm oil and fully hydrogenated fatty acids. Organic vegetables are notorious for requiring extra effort and care in preventing food borne pathogens that have been automated out of modern industrial farming. Neither side has the winning formula; either food production is cheap, centralized, efficient, and meets some core set of minimum standard or it is decentralized, expensive, labor intensive, and meets a wide array of rather whimsical standards.

On Monday, April 23, 2012 8:29:08 PM UTC-5, Nathan McCorkle wrote:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/05/opinion/kristof-arsenic-in-our-chicken.html
"
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Arsenic in Our Chicken?
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: April 4, 2012

Let’s hope you’re not reading this column while munching on a chicken sandwich.

That’s because my topic today is a pair of new scientific studies
suggesting that poultry on factory farms are routinely fed caffeine,
active ingredients of Tylenol and Benadryl, banned antibiotics and
even arsenic.

“We were kind of floored,” said Keeve E. Nachman, a co-author of both
studies and a scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Center for a
Livable Future.  “It’s unbelievable what we found.”

He said that the researchers had intended to test only for
antibiotics. But assays for other chemicals and pharmaceuticals didn’t
cost extra, so researchers asked for those results as well.

“We haven’t found anything that is an immediate health concern,”
Nachman added. “But it makes me question how comfortable we are
feeding a number of these things to animals that we’re eating. It
bewilders me.”

Likewise, I grew up on a farm, and thought I knew what to expect in my
food. But Benadryl? Arsenic? These studies don’t mean that you should
dump the contents of your refrigerator, but they do raise serious
questions about the food we eat and how we should shop.

It turns out that arsenic has routinely been fed to poultry (and

sometimes hogs) because it reduces infections and makes flesh an
appetizing shade of pink. There’s no evidence that such low levels of
arsenic harm either chickens or the people eating them, but still...

Big Ag doesn’t advertise the chemicals it stuffs into animals, so the
scientists conducting these studies figured out a clever way to detect
them. Bird feathers, like human fingernails, accumulate chemicals and
drugs that an animal is exposed to. So scientists from Johns Hopkins
University and Arizona State University examined feather meal — a
poultry byproduct made of feathers.

One study, just published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal,
Environmental Science & Technology, found that feather meal routinely
contained a banned class of antibiotics called fluoroquinolones. These
antibiotics (such as Cipro), are illegal in poultry production because
they can breed antibiotic-resistant “superbugs” that harm humans.
Already, antibiotic-resistant infections kill more Americans annually
than AIDS, according to the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

The same study also found that one-third of feather-meal samples
contained an antihistamine that is the active ingredient of Benadryl.
The great majority of feather meal contained acetaminophen, the active
ingredient in Tylenol. And feather-meal samples from China contained
an antidepressant that is the active ingredient in Prozac.

Poultry-growing literature has recommended Benadryl to reduce anxiety
among chickens, apparently because stressed chickens have tougher meat
and grow more slowly. Tylenol and Prozac presumably serve the same
purpose.

Researchers found that most feather-meal samples contained caffeine.
It turns out that chickens are sometimes fed coffee pulp and green tea
powder to keep them awake so that they can spend more time eating. (Is
that why they need the Benadryl, to calm them down?)

The other peer-reviewed study, reported in a journal called Science of
the Total Environment, found arsenic in every sample of feather meal
tested. Almost 9 in 10 broiler chickens in the United States had been
fed arsenic, according to a 2011 industry estimate.

These findings will surprise some poultry farmers because even they
often don’t know what chemicals they feed their birds. Huge food
companies require farmers to use a proprietary food mix, and the
farmer typically doesn’t know exactly what is in it. I asked the
United States Poultry and Egg Association for comment, but it said
that it had not seen the studies and had nothing more to say.

What does all this mean for consumers? The study looked only at
feathers, not meat, so we don’t know exactly what chemicals reach the
plate, or at what levels. The uncertainties are enormous, but I asked
Nachman about the food he buys for his own family. “I’ve been studying
food-animal production for some time, and the more I study, the more
I’m drawn to organic,” he said. “We buy organic.”

I’m the same. I used to be skeptical of organic, but the more
reporting I do on our food supply, the more I want my own family
eating organic — just to be safe.

To me, this underscores the pitfalls of industrial farming. When I was
growing up on our hopelessly inefficient family farm, we didn’t
routinely drug animals. If our chickens grew anxious, the reason was
perhaps a fox — and we never tried to resolve the problem with
Benadryl.

My take is that the business model of industrial agriculture has some
stunning accomplishments, such as producing cheap food that saves us
money at the grocery store. But we all may pay more in medical costs
because of antibiotic-resistant infections.

Frankly, after reading these studies, I’m so depressed about what has
happened to farming that I wonder: Could a Prozac-laced chicken nugget
help?
"

[Cathal Garvey]

You forgot to factor oil requirements into your formulas. Industrial farming is only "efficient" in terms of labour and land use, but it consumes far more oil, generally.

Yes, I realise this trend isn't true of method X in circumstance Y.

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[Simon Quellen Field]

Citation? I'm seeing several conflicting sources.

It looks like 'organic' farming uses more fuel in general, except for the

large amount of fuel needed to make nitrogen fertilizers. Herbicides

and pesticides are energy users to a lesser extent.

It would seem to me that genetically engineering food to fix its own

nitrogen and produce its own pesticides and herbicides would make it

quite a bit cheaper and more energy efficient than organic farming.

And organic farmers would never stoop to allowing such Frankenfoods

on their farms.

But I'd eat them. I'd even be happy to grow them here on my farm.

The London Telegraph dutifully reported  the results of a study by the Manchester Business School, comparing energy use in organic and conventional farming systems. In a life cycle assessment - farm to fork - it found that many organic crops use more energy.
The energy needed to grow organic tomatoes is 1.9 times that of conventional methods, the study found. Organic milk requires 80 per cent more land to produce than conventional milk and creates 20 per cent more carbon dioxide, it says.

 

Energy use in organic agriculture
With non-renewable energy sources waning and mounting concern over greenhouse gas emissions, reducing the food system’s energy burden is a critical task. An FAO paper published in August 2007 analyzed energy use in organic agriculture, in comparison with conventional agriculture.
The paper found that organic agriculture uses less fossil fuel based inputs and has a better carbon footprint than standard agricultural practices. This is because conventional agriculture production utilises more overall energy than organic systems due to heavy reliance on energy-intensive fertilisers, chemicals, and concentrated feed, which organic farmers forego. Importantly, organic operations can also provide promising possibilities for further energy reductions throughout the food system.
The summary of the paper is reproduced below. The full paper can be downloaded at http://www.fao.org/docs/eims/upload/233069/energy-use-oa.pdf 

-----

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[Cathal Garvey]

It's true that GM-tech could reverse the trend, but nitrogen from the Haber process it's so vastly energy intensive, it trumps relatively minor differences in mechanisation. So until N-fixing becomes commonplace outside alders and legumes, small scale/organic trumps industrial for "resilience" and environmental impact.

Simon Quellen Field <sfi...@scitoys.com> wrote:

>Citation? I'm seeing several conflicting sources.
>
>It looks like 'organic' farming uses more fuel in general, except for
>the
>large amount of fuel needed to make nitrogen fertilizers. Herbicides
>and pesticides are energy users to a lesser extent.
>
>It would seem to me that genetically engineering food to fix its own
>nitrogen and produce its own pesticides and herbicides would make it
>quite a bit cheaper and more energy efficient than organic farming.
>
>And organic farmers would never stoop to allowing such Frankenfoods
>on their farms.
>
>But I'd eat them. I'd even be happy to grow them here on my

>farm<http://birdfarm.org/>
>.
>
>The London Telegraph dutifully
>reported<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/20/norganic20.xml>

> the
>> results of a study by the Manchester Business School, comparing
>energy use
>> in organic and conventional farming systems. In a life cycle
>assessment -
>> farm to fork - it found that many organic crops use more energy.
>> The energy needed to grow organic tomatoes is 1.9 times that of
>> conventional methods, the study found. Organic milk requires 80 per
>cent
>> more land to produce than conventional milk and creates 20 per cent
>more
>> carbon dioxide, it says.
>>
>
>
>

>> *Energy use in organic agriculture*

[Cathal Garvey]

It's true that GM-tech could reverse the trend, but nitrogen from the Haber process it's so vastly energy intensive, it trumps relatively minor differences in mechanisation. So until N-fixing becomes commonplace outside alders and legumes, small scale/organic trumps industrial for "resilience" and environmental impact.

Simon Quellen Field <sfi...@scitoys.com> wrote:

>Citation? I'm seeing several conflicting sources.
>
>It looks like 'organic' farming uses more fuel in general, except for
>the
>large amount of fuel needed to make nitrogen fertilizers. Herbicides
>and pesticides are energy users to a lesser extent.
>
>It would seem to me that genetically engineering food to fix its own
>nitrogen and produce its own pesticides and herbicides would make it
>quite a bit cheaper and more energy efficient than organic farming.
>
>And organic farmers would never stoop to allowing such Frankenfoods
>on their farms.
>
>But I'd eat them. I'd even be happy to grow them here on my

>farm<http://birdfarm.org/>
>.
>
>The London Telegraph dutifully
>reported<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/20/norganic20.xml>

> the
>> results of a study by the Manchester Business School, comparing
>energy use
>> in organic and conventional farming systems. In a life cycle
>assessment -
>> farm to fork - it found that many organic crops use more energy.
>> The energy needed to grow organic tomatoes is 1.9 times that of
>> conventional methods, the study found. Organic milk requires 80 per
>cent
>> more land to produce than conventional milk and creates 20 per cent
>more
>> carbon dioxide, it says.
>>
>
>
>

>> *Energy use in organic agriculture*

[mad_casual]

You're forgetting that organic food can and does make people sick, negating any benefit of 'organic'. Additionally, with the 'abundance' of oil, you will always expend energy regulating organic food. IMO, this is where we get into AGW as a religion. Not even N-fixers are prolific enough to feed the human race. Possibly with engineering they could be, but I'm dubious. Enzymes don't lower energy costs, they just speed the transaction. The only solution is to reduce the size of the human race. In this sense, burning oil to produce more food that is less contaminated is only increasing the size of the human race, and you're right, making things worse. The alternative is to allow (more) people to starve. What does science have to say about melting the polar ice caps and annihilating species vs. letting people starve or displacing them to more fertile regions? IMO, it's not a scientific question, it's a moral/religious one.

[Nathan McCorkle]

Lately I've been hearing that transportation costs for small-time
farmers (not necessarily organic), local food, is much more expensive
in general because that leg of the system is just way more efficient
for big corp farms (i.e. a tractor trailer truck is per kg food
transported much more efficient than the local farmer's box truck)

http://www.npr.org/2012/04/16/150705824/new-rules-for-everyday-foodies

http://www.gmu.edu/centers/publicchoice/faculty%20pages/Tyler/

[Jordan Miller]

I truly wish that biology were as simple as the formulae and logic
being laid out in these discussions. unfortunately it's not.

besides the unknowns being discussed, there are certainly unknown
unknowns still lurking out there. I already mentioned thalidomide as
an example of what can happen when we as a society rush into things
with a "what could possibly go wrong" mentality.

we need to balance our goals for efficiency with the humility to
realize we don't know everything and that best intentions often lead
to unintended consequences.

when I have a choice, I err on the side of organic. that is a
regulated term in the US so you legally know what you are buying.
that's why it's so popular. plus it tastes better (ever had celery
where you could taste the pesticides? I have.).

cheers,
jordan

[David Murphy]

"besides the unknowns being discussed, there are certainly unknown
unknowns still lurking out there."

ah the unknowns unknown of the unknown unknown.
they are such a scar unknown

 

If you want to talk about unknowns and assume that things which worry you are unknown by everyone rather than just you like the toxic doses and effects of things like arsenic then make sure to apply the same logic to 

Rotenone(an "organic" pesticide which is extremely toxic to fish and other aquatic life and which has to be used in far larger quantities than non-organic pesticides)
Pyrethrin (probably safe but some Pyrethroids are suspected to have effects on brain development)

Neem oil( probably safe but *may* be associated with liver damage in children.)

Sabadilla (repeated small doses showed possible cumulative effects)

 

All of which can be used in "organic" farming. Ever tasted neem oil?

 

because where the harsh synthetic compounds have to go through a battery of tests and regulation the organic stuff is rarely subjected to the same scrutiny so we are left with lots of unknowns in "organic".

[Tom Randall]

On Thursday, April 26, 2012 5:07:37 PM UTC-4, mad_casual wrote:

Aflatoxin in peanut butter? Check.

Mercury in vaccines? Check.

Mercury in tuna? Check.

Arsenic in Chicken? Check.

BSE in Beef? Check.

Forgot acrylamide in potatoes.

[L. Stephen Coles, M.D., Ph.D.]

FYI. -- Steve Coles, UCLA School of Medicine; Los Angeles, CA

The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Tuesday said it has confirmed the first new case of mad-cow disease since 2006 in a California dairy cow.
The cow was tested as part of the USDA's ongoing surveillance system for the disease. This is the fourth case of mad-cow disease reported in the U.S.
Agency officials stressed that no meat from the animal entered the human food supply. USDA officials said they don't expect any foreign countries
to ban U.S. beef because of the new mad-cow case.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303592404577364161418169628.html?mod=djemalertNEWS

__________________________________________________________________________________________
At 12:58 PM 4/24/2012; Dan wrote:

On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 3:14 PM, Dan Wright <djwr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has classified arsenic as Group A;
> a human carcinogen, based on sufficient evidence from human data including
> increased lung cancer mortality in multiple human populations exposed
> primarily through inhalation, increased mortality from multiple internal
> organ cancers (liver, kidney, lung, bladder), and increased skin cancers
> observed in populations exposed to arsenic in drinking water

They probably also give those chickens dihydrogenmonoxide (DHMO).
This is a chemical which is used in many industrial applications
(including nuclear reactors!) and which causes thousands if not
millions of deaths every year.  It is also regularly found in drinking
water in all parts of the world, but especially in the US - where we
also add toxins like flourine to our water.  It is regularly found in
the excised tumors of cancer patients, and is the major component in
acid rain.  I think we should be just as concerned about consuming too
much DHMO as we are about the amount of arsenic in our chickens.

This link tells you all you want to know about DHMO:

http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html

-- Dan

L. Stephen Coles, M.D., Ph.D., Co-Founder
Los Angeles Gerontology Research Group
URL:

http://www.grg.org
E-mail: sco...@grg.org
E-mail: sco...@ucla.edu

[Jordan Miller]

read the jungle if you want to understand why we need food regulation. it's not a recent problem. consumers deserve transparency and yes people are free to make their own decisions.

jordan

[d wright]

All the pro-arsenic folks should love this article one bpa as well. Why can't we do a rt pcr test to see what genes are turned on (and by how much) and off for this and other chemicals? In general, not necessarily with hormone mimickers. If the substance cranks up the onco genes and shuts down the cancer suppressor genes it seem that this is a good clue that it is not safe. I would then shift the burden to the manufacturer to prove its reasonably safe.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/03/opinion/kristof-how-chemicals-change-us.html?src=me&ref=general
How Chemicals Affect Us

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Published: May 2, 2012

Scientists are observing with increasing alarm that some very common hormone-mimicking chemicals can have grotesque effects.

Damon Winter/The New York Times

Nicholas D. Kristof

On the Ground

Nicholas Kristof addresses reader feedback and posts short takes from his travels.

Go to Blog »

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• Canada Declares BPA, a Chemical in Plastics, to Be Toxic (October 14, 2010)

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Readers’ Comments

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• Read All Comments (200) »

A widely used herbicide acts as a female hormone and feminizes male animals in the wild. Thus male frogs can have female organs, and some male fish actually produce eggs. In a Florida lake contaminated by these chemicals, male alligators have tiny penises.

These days there is also growing evidence linking this class of chemicals to problems in humans. These include breast cancer, infertility, low sperm counts, genital deformities, early menstruation and even diabetes and obesity.

Philip Landrigan, a professor of pediatrics at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, says that a congenital defect called hypospadias — a misplacement of the urethra — is now twice as common among newborn boys as it used to be. He suspects endocrine disruptors, so called because they can wreak havoc with the endocrine system that governs hormones.

Endocrine disruptors are everywhere. They’re in thermal receipts that come out of gas pumps and A.T.M.’s. They’re in canned foods, cosmetics, plastics and food packaging. Test your blood or urine, and you’ll surely find them there, as well as in human breast milk and in cord blood of newborn babies.

In this campaign year, we are bound to hear endless complaints about excessive government regulation. But here’s an area where scientists are increasingly critical of our government for its failure to tackle Big Chem and regulate endocrine disruptors adequately.

Last month, the Endocrine Society, the leading association of hormone experts, scolded the Food and Drug Administration for its failure to ban bisphenol-A, a common endocrine disruptor known as BPA, from food packaging. Last year, eight medical organizations representing genetics, gynecology, urology and other fields made a joint call in Science magazine for tighter regulation of endocrine disruptors.

Shouldn’t our government be as vigilant about threats in our grocery stores as in the mountains of Afghanistan?

Researchers warn that endocrine disruptors can trigger hormonal changes in the body that may not show up for decades. One called DES, a synthetic form of estrogen, was once routinely given to pregnant women to prevent miscarriage or morning sickness, and it did little harm to the women themselves. But it turned out to cause vaginal cancer and breast cancer decades later in their daughters, so it is now banned.

Scientists have long known the tiniest variations in hormone levels influence fetal development. For example, a female twin is very slightly masculinized if the other twin is a male, because she is exposed to some of his hormones. Studies have found that these female twins, on average, end up slightly more aggressive and sensation-seeking as adults but have lower rates of eating disorders.

Now experts worry that endocrine disruptors have similar effects, acting as hormones and swamping the delicate balance for fetuses in particular. The latest initiative by scholars is a landmark 78-page analysis to be published next month in Endocrine Reviews, the leading publication in the field.

“Fundamental changes in chemical testing and safety determination are needed to protect human health,” the analysis declares. Linda S. Birnbaum, the nation’s chief environmental scientist and toxicologist, endorsed the findings.

The article was written by a 12-member panel that spent three years reviewing the evidence. It concluded that the nation’s safety system for endocrine disruptors is broken.

“For several well-studied endocrine disruptors, I think it is fair to say that we have enough data to conclude that these chemicals are not safe for human populations,” said Laura Vandenberg, a Tufts University developmental biologist who was the lead writer for the panel.

Worrying new research on the long-term effects of these chemicals is constantly being published. One study found that pregnant women who have higher levels of a common endocrine disruptor, PFOA, are three times as likely to have daughters who grow up to be overweight. Yet PFOA is unavoidable. It is in everything from microwave popcorn bags to carpet-cleaning solutions.

Big Chem says all this is sensationalist science. So far, it has blocked strict regulation in the United States, even as Europe and Canada have adopted tighter controls on endocrine disruptors.

Yes, there are uncertainties. But the scientists who know endocrine disruptors best overwhelmingly are already taking steps to protect their families. John Peterson Myers, chief scientist at Environmental Health Sciences and a co-author of the new analysis, said that his family had stopped buying canned food.

“We don’t microwave in plastic,” he added. “We don’t use pesticides in our house. I refuse receipts whenever I can. My default request at the A.T.M., known to my bank, is ‘no receipt.’ I never ask for a receipt from a gas station.”

I’m taking my cue from the experts, and I wish the Obama administration would as well.

[Nathan McCorkle]

On Fri, Apr 27, 2012 at 1:38 AM, David Murphy <murphy...@gmail.com> wrote:
> "besides the unknowns being discussed, there are certainly unknown
> unknowns still lurking out there."
>
> ah the unknowns unknown of the unknown unknown.
> they are such a scar unknown
>
> If you want to talk about unknowns and assume that things which worry you
> are unknown by everyone rather than just you like the toxic doses and
> effects of things like arsenic then make sure to apply the same logic to
>
> Rotenone(an "organic" pesticide which is extremely toxic to fish and other
> aquatic life and which has to be used in far larger quantities than
> non-organic pesticides)
> Pyrethrin (probably safe but some Pyrethroids are suspected to have effects
> on brain development)
> Neem oil( probably safe but *may* be associated with liver damage in
> children.)
> Sabadilla (repeated small doses showed possible cumulative effects)
>
> All of which can be used in "organic" farming. Ever tasted neem oil?

Yes, I've tasted the oil. I've also eaten the leaves (neem pata,
pata==leaf) in a quite bitter and spicy Bengali dish, which was served
daily or every other day. The chef who served me is living old and
strong, and her mother-in-law died in her 90s and I'm pretty sure she
ate neem pata.

In fact, I often ask at Indian markets and restaurants if they have
the fresh leaves or the dish. None do, for some reason bitter
slightly-medicinal-tasting foods aren't popular here. Then there's the
guy I recently met who eats turmeric mixed into warm coconut milk (I
simply cook almost everything with turmeric, and black pepper to let
it synergize).