On June 8th, Pfizer Inc. announced that it will stop making and selling roxarsone, an arsenic-containing additive in chicken feed, phasing out the compound by July 9th.
Since 1944, arsenic-containing additives have been used in chicken feed for “for increased rate of weight gain, improved feed efficiency, and improved pigmentation” and “as an aid in the prevention of coccidiosis [a parasitic infestation]". Some of the arsenic that the chickens eat accumulates in their muscles, and when people eat the chicken, they also eat the arsenic.
Recently, evidence has been building that roxarsone and other arsenic-containing additives are not as innocuous as was once thought. The poultry industry has long maintained that use of roxarsone is safe for humans because roxarson contains an organic arsenic compound (meaning that it is chemically bound to carbon), rather than the carcinogenic inorganic form of arsenic; however, the arsenic in roxarsone can convert to this more dangerous inorganic form both inside chickens and inside people. Though there is no direct evidence linking the arsenic specifically from poultry to human disease, research has shown that exposure to arsenic in humans causes cancer and may contribute to other health problems including high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, and impaired intellectual function.
The final straw for roxarsone came with an FDA study, published yesterday, that found that levels of the dangerous inorganic form of arsenic were consistently higher in chickens treated with roxarsone than in untreated chickens, meaning that use of roxarsone unnecessarily increases human exposure to a known carcinogen. After the FDA released its findings, Pfizer immediately released its plans to end sales of the additive.
While Pfizer’s action won’t immediately remove arsenic from the food system (first there’s the phase-out period, after which poultry producers will still be able to use what stocks they have, and then there are several other, less widely used arsenic-containing feed additives to contend with), it is a crucial and commendable step that has taken one unnecessary form of carcinogen exposure out of our lives.
Whenever industry takes its own initiative to stop a profitable practice, even a potentially dangerous one, skepticism generally follows. Pfizer continued to sell roxarsone for years in the face of mounting evidence of its carcinogenic potential. In March, the failure of a Maryland initiative to ban roxarsone use in the state seemed to signal that arsenic-containing additives were here to stay. Crucial to Pfizer’s decision, then, is the fact that, given its evidence that inorganic arsenic is present in chickens treated with roxarsone, the FDA has the power to ban roxarsone as a carcinogen. Rather than face a ban, Pfizer pulled the product and in doing so took an unnecessary risk off the dinner table.
Unfortunately, the removal of roxarsone from chicken feed only scratches the surface of what could and should be done to improve the ethical, environmental, and health-related implications of industrial meat production. Industrial meat comes from factory farms where animals live in inhumane conditions, where waste is released into toxic “lagoons,” and where the use of chemical and pharmaceutical additives is the norm. My own questioning of industrial meat practices has led me to intern with KOL Foods, a company that provides kosher meat produced in an ethical, health-protective, and environmentally-friendly way. Alternatives to industrial poultry production, like those provided by KOL Foods, light a path as we take small steps to improve the food system that puts meat on our plates.
While changing this industrial meat system sometimes seems impossible, small steps like those that the FDA and Pfizer took last week offer hope that meat production practices can improve. I can only hope that this small victory will be the first of many.
*Amy Radding is an intern at KOL Foods. She prefers her arsenic-free, kosher, pasture-raised chicken spatchcocked and pan-roasted with lemon and rosemary.*
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