Federal Limits on Arsenic in Food and Beverages Still Not in Place

After virtually eliminating arsenic as a useful tool for homicide, science now faces challenges in doing the same for natural sources of this fabled old "inheritance powder" that contaminates water supplies and food, threatening more than 35 million people worldwide.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of a popular book documenting arsenic's horrific history as a poison highlighted that situation at a far-ranging symposium on arsenic  during the 245th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society. The following topics were among the two dozen presentations at the "Arsenic Contamination in Food and Water" symposium (abstracts appear below):

·         Poisoner's cupboard: The long (and sometimes homicidal) history of arsenic in everyday life.

·         Arsenic in rice and rice products.

·         Remediation of arsenic contamination of groundwater in Asia and USA.

·         Development of a method for assessing perinatal exposures to heavy metals using residual dried blood spots from

           newborn screening programs

·         Pick your poison? Arsenic in harvested country foods, edible mushrooms and wine from Canada.

·         Low, slow and Next Gen impact: Arsenic, human health and cancer risks.

"Because of its sinister, homicidal uses, arsenic — a naturally occurring element found in the Earth's crust — became world-renowned as the 'inheritance powder,'" explained Deborah Blum, the plenary speaker for the symposium. "What made arsenic such a good homicidal poison is the same thing that makes it dangerous in environmental exposures — it gives no warning," said Blum, who is at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "It's mostly tasteless, it's odorless, and it's colorless. The symptoms of arsenic poisoning, especially if given in small doses over a long time, mimic those of natural diseases, so for a long time, people got away with it. Arsenic became one of the great historical poisons in human history."

Blum described how arsenic remained largely the poisoner's first choice until the 19th century, when manufacturers started using it in pesticides, candies, jewelry and even in wallpaper to give it a deep green color. It even found uses in patent remedies and as an additive in certain foods. It was all over the place and easy for anyone to get.

"At the start of the 19th century, scientists started realizing that they had to put a stop to this free-wheeling, murderous situation," she explained. "That's when the big revolution happened — scientists finally figured out how to detect arsenic in the body. Slowly, people realized they couldn't easily get away with it anymore, and arsenic became more difficult to obtain — manufacturers stopped adding it to common household products."

Other speakers in the symposium focused on the ongoing problem of arsenic contamination in the 21st century. Arsenic occurs naturally in elevated concentrations in the soil in certain areas of the world. It sometimes leaches into drinking water supplies and food. Recent reports in the news media have drawn attention to its presence in apple juice and rice, and in groundwater in Bangladesh and Chile.

"The goal of the symposium was to bring together experts on many aspects of arsenic, including general insights about arsenic contamination in food and water, regulatory issues, ways to analyze the element and ways to clean up contamination," said Jennifer Maclachlan of PID Analyzers, LLC, who was a co-organizer of the symposium. The other co-organizers were Britt Burton-Freeman, Ph.D., of the Illinois Institute of Technology; Lauren Jackson, Ph.D., of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA); John Johnston, Ph.D., of the U.S. Department of Agriculture; and Bill Mindak of FDA.

How much progress have federal officials made in taking steps to reduce Americans' exposure to arsenic in everyday foods such as rice and apple juice? Not as much as we'd hope to see. While there is an arsenic standard for drinking water, no federal limit exists for arsenic in most foods.

It's been more than a year since Consumer Reports started publishing test results that found worrisome levels of arsenic in juices and in rice products such as rice crackers and rice cereals. We urged that you consider limiting consumption of some juices and some kinds of rice products. Meanwhile, the wheels are turning slowly as various agencies weigh in on proposed arsenic rules.

Here's an update on each area:

Arsenic in juice

More than a year ago, the Food and Drug Administration said it would conduct tests and possibly draw up new guidelines to reduce risks posed by arsenic in juice after Consumer Reports' tests found that roughly 10 percent of samples of apple or grape juice tested had total arsenic levels that exceeded federal drinking-water standards. Most of that arsenic was the inorganic form, a carcinogen that poses special risks for pregnant women and young children.

The FDA has now drafted a report that may propose new guidelines to limit arsenic in apple juice, but that report remains under wraps while being reviewed at the Office of Management and Budget, where it has been for at least a couple of months, based on comments made by an FDA official at a National Academy of Sciences meeting on January 24.

Arsenic in rice

Last September, when Consumer Reports released even more troubling results based on its tests for arsenic in more than 200 samples of rice products, including brown rice, white rice, as well as rice cereals, crackers, and drinks, our safety experts called on the FDA to set limits for arsenic in rice products.

The FDA responded by announcing that its own tests of rice and products such as infant rice cereals had detected inorganic arsenic at levels that were consistent with Consumer Reports' results, and it released results for nearly 200 of the samples it tested. The agency also pledged to test at least 1,000 additional samples by the end of 2012 to help determine what steps are needed to reduce arsenic exposure in rice. Though the agency should have completed tests of more than 1,300 samples of rice and rice products, the full results have not yet been disclosed.

Consumers Union, the policy and advocacy arm of Consumer Reports, has filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain results of all tests for arsenic in rice and rice products that the Food and Drug Administration has collected in its files from 1991 through the present. The request, part of our continuing investigation into health hazards posed by arsenic's presence in rice, seeks not only data on the levels of organic and inorganic arsenic detected but also all other details, including the country or state where the rice being tested was grown. Such data also are helpful in formulating our recommendations to consumers about consumption of rice products.

 

Source:

www.consumerreports.org

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