[DIYbio] Re: New York Times - Arsenic in Our Chicken?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/05/opinion/kristof-arsenic-in-our-chicken.html
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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?
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Nathan McCorkle
Rochester Institute of Technology
College of Science, Biotechnology/Bioinformatics