(Maryland, USA) A proposal to ban the use of arsenic as a feed additive will be before the General Assembly again in the upcoming session, bolstered by a new report detailing the health risks. The report shows that organic arsenic in an ingredient long fed to poultry converted to more toxic inorganic arsenic when poultry waste was used as fertilizer.
Del. Tom Hucker (D-Dist. 20) of Silver Spring, who plans to reintroduce the legislation in 2012, said the report confirms that "we've been putting Maryland's soil and water at risk for years."
In the 2011 legislative session, opponents of a ban said science did not support concerns that the arsenic-containing ingredient could harm people or the environment.
University of Maryland, College Park scientists who drafted the report, which was released this week, also cited a U.S. Food and Drug Administration study from June that detailed how poultry fed the ingredient, called Roxarsone, had higher levels of inorganic arsenic in their livers, but that the levels were "very low."
The report, prepared at the request of Maryland House and Senate committees, also noted studies that found arsenic — primarily in the more water-soluble and toxic inorganic form — accumulates in soils where poultry litter, or waste, has been applied. In some cases, the arsenic was higher than levels that require remediation, the review said.
Only a few groundwater samples tested from Delaware and Maryland's Eastern Shore counties showed levels above drinking water standards, the report said.
But studies found that most of the arsenic that runs into streams from poultry-litter fertilized fields is the more toxic inorganic form, and that some aquatic life in those streams had arsenic accumulations too high to be safe for human cosumption.
After the FDA announced its findings and said that Roxarsone would be banned as a carcinogen, its manufacturer Pfizer stopped distributing it in the United States in July.
However FDA spokeswoman Stephanie Yao said Thursday that the agency has not withdrawn approval of Roxarsone.
Canada banned it after the FDA announced its findings, but, according to Canadian newspaper reports, Pfizer is trying to get it back on the market there. It already was banned in Europe.
Source: Maryland Gazette.Net
