Great Peril from Arsenic Fed Chicken Meat!

This is the symbol of death.

Since Middle Ages, arsenic and its compounds are known as especially powerful toxins.

In large doses, arsenic impairs ATP production and the citric acid cycle, thus inhibiting cell respiration while increased hydrogen peroxide rises the oxidative stress.

Arsenic poisoning is induces by multi-system organ failure caused by cell death.

Post mortem autopsies reveal massive hemorrhage in the mucosa.

But arsenic can also play a protective role. An arsenic-based additive is put in chicken feed to promote growth, kill parasites and improve pigmentation of chicken meat. Roxarsone, the most common arsenic-based additive employed in chicken feed, used in its original form, is relatively benign.

But a new research has found that under certain anaerobic conditions, within live chickens and on farm land, the compound is turned into more toxic forms of inorganic arsenic.

This may pose health risks to humans who eat meat from chickens exposed to this type of arsenic.

Low and chronic arsenic doses have been linked to bladder, lung, skin, kidney and colon cancer, while low-level exposures can inflict partial paralysis and diabetes.

Roxarsone use has turned into a topic of increasing controversy and a growing number of food suppliers have stopped employing the chemical, including the US largest poultry producer, Tyson Foods.

Even so, roughly 70 % of the 9 billion broiler chickens grown annually in the U.S. receive a diet containing roxarsone.

Moreover, the precise level of arsenic encountered currently in chicken meat sold in US is not known. "Neither the Food and Drug Administration nor the Department of Agriculture has actually measured the level of arsenic in the poultry meat that most people consume," warned the researchers.

The National Chicken Council, a trade association representing the U.S. chicken industry, says there is "no reason to believe there are any human health hazards" linked to the employment of roxarsone.