(Editor’s note: The author warns that we might be eating chicken that has been fed with arsenic chicken feed.)
This is an alert to all consumers and importers of US chicken and/or chicken feed. A study done by the John Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, which took chicken samples from grocers in ten major US cities in 2010 to 2011, reports that inorganic arsenic and traces of roxarsone were found in some of the samples.
The samples included conventional chicken, some antibiotic-free, some the more expensive USDA Certified Organic chicken. Chicken samples with residual roxarsone had levels of inorganic arsenic four times higher than those in the USDA organic chicken.
The article which cited the Hopkins study wrote, “Industry representatives note that, in 2010, almost 90% of all chicken eaten in America were treated with arsenic drugs.” Arsenic, which is mixed into chicken feed, acts as a growth catalyst, and enhances pigmentation, making the chicken more appealing visually.
Withdrawn from the US market but dumped in other countries
Roxarsone is manufactured by Pfizer, which was forced to withdraw it from the market, replacing it with nitrasone, which had a similar chemical composition. It is not known if nitrasone has similar toxicity of harmful effects. Presently, Pfizer exports roxarsone to other countries, according to the article. The dumping in other countries by American firms of food and chemicals banned in the US has been going on in the last few decades.
The article further reports, “Such life-threatening conditions as type 2 diabetes, bladder, lung and skin cancer, as well as heart disease and cognitive deficiencies have been linked to the dangerous compound.”
In the absence of Federal intervention, Maryland was the first to ban arsenic-laced chicken feed. It is expected that other states will follow, which would pressure the Federal Government to finally take action. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been constantly accused of supporting chemical food of big firms and suppressing organic food of small firms. Three cases confirm the unholy alliance between the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and FDA threatening the health of all Americans.
The Unholy Alliance
Case 1. At gun point, federal agents stormed a small community-based farm in Maryland, terrorizing innocent children, to seize milk and yogurt produce. ‘Raw milk’ produced by small farmers is rapidly gaining popularity, threatening big dairies, which has launched a massive propaganda saying raw milk is ‘dangerous’, when studies report it actually strengthens the immunity system. The unholy alliance of corporations and government is being blamed for causing the cancer epidemic sweeping America today. Cancer casualties victims exceed that of both world wars combined by far.
Case 2. Sheep imported from the Netherlands and New Zealand were seized by USDA federal agents in a small Vermont farm on the pretext of Metcalf disease. The farm sued USDA for the cover-up of the results of a study reporting that imported sheep did not have Metcalf disease. USDA lost the case and paid the farm $1,300 per head. When the farm complained that others were paid P5,000 per head, the USDA said that was their penalty for suing.
Imported farm animals are a direct threat to big agro-industrial firms which control the huge meat and milk markets in the US. They have the power to covertly tell the USDA to do things for them. USDA inspectors admitted that there were ‘political pressures’, and that they issued threats that if it came out in the media, the farms will go out of business.
Case 3. Steve Smith, a former NASA climate change scientist, had a small 150-acre farm in Lodi, New York. He organized a town consumer cooperative to buy organic produce from a farmer’s market he set up. The Department of Agricultural Markets of the State of New York, which was mandated to protect and support farmers, swooped down on the market, and closed it down on the pretext of no permits.
The irony is unhealthy chemical food is produced by the biggies and healthy organic food by the small ones. A farmer says they are now being forced by the government to produce the same chemical food, use pesticide, chemical fertilizers, anti-biotics, irradiation, cloning, and other expensive processes meant for big agribusiness. These are the ‘orders’ of the big firms on government agencies. They say the regulations are for ‘food safety’ when it is the exact opposite. The emerging American food crisis is not a crisis of abundance but of contamination.
This trend is forcing the small farmers to close down. They are vanishing quickly, these sources of health food. Since 1970, America has lost a staggering 88% of its small dairies. America is going for cancer food all because of the greed of a group monopoly of food giants. Enhancing the cancer epidemic, it is a form of suicide condoned by the Federal Government.
(The author is a senior columnist in the last 20 years, a radio-TV broadcaster, and a freelance TV documentary producer-director. eastwindreplyctr@gmail.com).