Arsenic in Your Chicken Anyone?

 According to an Associated Press story, the Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday that some chicken meat may contain small amounts of arsenic, though the agency is stressing that the amount is too tiny to be dangerous to people who eat it.

The FDA report indicated that a new study developed by the agency shows that an ingredient in chicken feed contains arsenic. The FDA further states that people should not stop eating chicken that may have been fed the drug.  Are you kidding me?  This is yet another example of how inept the FDA is and how they are in bed with the drug companies.  By the way, the company that was adding arsenic to chicken feed is Pfizer, the second largest drug company in the world.

And  yet, for more than 60 years, the federal regulators have approved arsenic additives to poultry feed in the United States, partly to control parasites and partly because they chemically improve the appearance of packaged chicken and turkey parts, pinking them up for consumer approval.

A person can survive low-level arsenic poisoning for quite some time. But  because of the way it damages cells – breaking apart the structures that allow cellular respiration –  it turns out to be a quite dangerous carcinogen. This has been demonstrated, especially, in countries where elemental arsenic permeates rocks at high levels and seeps into ground water. In Bangladesh, for instance, a program of well-drilling begun in the 1970s, literally created an epidemic of arsenic-related cancers.

Those of us who prefer less obviously toxic material in our chicken buckets – and this includes me – will definitely only eat organic chicken that are fed an organic diet.

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