"SALISBURY -- In a continued effort to ban arsenic in chicken feed, Food & Water Watch, a Maryland consumer advocacy group, has released a study outlining the environmental and human health impacts posed by 'poisoned poultry.'
Kim Huynh, mid-Atlantic organizer for the group, said arsenic -- which is found in roxarsone, an antibiotic that promotes growth in chickens -- increases consumers' risk for cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and other health problems.
'(Arsenic) is an active ingredient in rat poison that is fed to much of the chickens Americans eat and serve to their families today,' Huynh said. 'No person should be exposed to arsenic.'
Roxarsone, according to the study, was approved in 1944 for the prevention of coccidiosis, which invades the intestinal cells of poultry and can cause death. Farmers soon discovered the drug had other uses and, in 1951, the Federal Drug Administration approved roxarsone 'to promote growth, feed efficiency and improve pigmentation.'"
Sarah Lake reports for the Salisbury Times November 10, 2010.
