(Simon Howden)
Would you like a little arsenic with your chicken?
Probably not. So, as The New York Times reports, now that a study by the Food and Drug Administration has found trace amounts of the poisonous carcinogen in chickens given the widely used drug 3-Nitro, the medication’s manufacturer will suspend U.S. sales of the product.
Officials with the FDA and the manufacturer, the Pfizer subsidiary Alpharma, emphasized that the arsenic levels detected in the chickens were very low and do not pose a known health risk to consumers. As a result, , the FDA said it will allow supermarkets to continue selling chickens already treated with the drug, which has been given to poultry since the 1940s.
And Pfizer will be able to continue selling the product for 30 days while poultry farmers look for alternatives. The drug is used to kill intestinal parasites, promote weight gain and make the meat pinker.
In a statement, the National Chicken Council, an industry group, said, “Chicken companies will continue to safeguard chicken flocks because healthy flocks are needed to produce healthful food for people. Consumers can continue to buy and eat chicken as they always have.”
As the Times pointed out, however, neither Perdue nor organic chicken producers use 3-Nitro, which also is known as roxarsone.
The drug contains organic arsenic, which is far less toxic than inorganic arsenic and was widely assumed to have no effect on people who consumed chickens or other poultry. But, as a result of evidence that organic arsenic can convert into more toxic counterpart, the FDA launched its investigation.
The agency’s study found that chicken fed 3-Nitro had consistently higher levels of inorganic arsenic in their livers.
Pfizer said it will not resume U.S. sales of the drug until the FDA’s concerns are resolved.
