Public Health Risk of Arsenic Species in Chicken Tissues from Live Poultry Markets of Guangdong Province, China

Abstract

Arsenic-based feed additives, such as roxarsone (ROX), are still legally and widely used in food animal production in many countries. This study was conducted to systematically characterize the content and speciation of arsenic in chicken tissues from live poultry markets and in commercial chicken feeds in Guangdong, a major poultry production and consumption province in China, and to assess the corresponding public health risk. The total arsenic contents in the commercial feeds could be modeled as a mixture of two log-normal distributions (geometric means: 0.66 and 17.5 mg/kg), and inorganic arsenic occurred at high levels (0.19-9.7 mg/kg) in those with ROX detected. In general, chicken livers had much higher contents of total arsenic compared to the muscle tissues (breast and drumstick), and chicken muscle from the urban markets contained arsenic at much higher levels than that from the rural markets. The incremental lifetime cancer risk (bladder and lung cancer) from dietary exposure to arsenic contained in chicken meat products on local markets was above the serious or priority level (10) for 70% and 30% of the adult populations in Guangzhou and Lianzhou, respectively. These findings indicate the significant need to phase out the use of arsenic-based feed additives in China.

Multi-Year Survey and Bayesian Modeling Approach for Characterizing Arsenic Pollution in Marine Clams Cultivated Along the Tidal Flats of Mid-Eastern China

“…The cumulative probability distribution of HQ is shown in Figure 7A, and the related statistical information is presented in Supplementary Table S6. The HQ values for Chinese adults for consuming MV ranged from 0.03 to 4.32, with 1.6% having a risk above the serious or priority level (HQ 1) (Hu et al, 2017), whereas that of MM, VP, SC, and CS ranged from 0.22 to 1.11, 0.02 to 1.82, 0.01 to 0.91, and 0.02 to 2.17, respectively, with only 0.002, 0.03, 0, and 0.08% having a health risk above the serious or priority level. Based on the USEPA's proposed cancer slope factor of 25.7 cases for an iAs dose of 1 mg kg-1 BW/d, the average daily consumption of MV may result in a mean of 16.5 cases of bladder and lung cancer per 100,000 Chinese adults with lifetime exposure (Supplementary Table S7).…”

Evaluation of Arsenic Concentration in Poultry and Calf Meat Samples by Hydride Generation Atomic Fluorescence Spectrometry

“…Also according to their results, ROX concentrations decreased and i-As concentrations increased when the samples were cooked which showed that the cooking process had influence on arsenic forms [27,28]. Hu et al used HPLC-ICP-MS for speciation analysis of inorganic and organic arsenic species in chicken meat and both roxarsone and inorganic arsenic were detected at notably high amounts in chicken samples [29]. In an another study, cigarette filter was utilized as an adsorbent and coupled with HG-AFS for determination of total arsenic in various food samples such as vegetables, rice, chicken and fish [20].…”

A new one‐dimensional coordination polymer synthesized from zinc and guanazole: Superior capture of organic arsenics

“…p ‐Arsanilic acid ( p ‐ASA) and roxarsone (ROX) are common organic arsenic compounds widely used as feed additives to control the intestinal parasites in domestic animals. [ 4, 8, 9 ] However, p ‐ASA and ROX are often discharged into the environment along with animal faeces. [ 10, 11 ] Generally, p ‐ASA and ROX are deemed as low‐toxic compounds.…”