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US rice imports 'contain harmful levels of lead'
- gnosis 14y ago"If you look through the scientific literature, especially on India and China, they irrigate their crops with raw sewage effluent and untreated industrial effluent," he explained." ... "Dr Tongesayi also said that the increasing practice of sending electronic waste to developing countries - and the pollution it leads to - exacerbates the problem." This is seriously scary! I had no idea that the delicious Indian and Pakistani basmati rice that I buy from my local asian grocery store might have been grown in sewage! They certainly don't advertise this at the grocery store. And this article mentions that high levels of arsenic in rice was a "well-known" problem, linking of FDA's advice on the matter:[1] I had no idea about this either. Why isn't there more publicity about this? What happened to the FDA's mission to protect the consumer? Why aren't rice imports tested for heavy metals? If not an outright ban on products that fail to meet basic safety standards, at the very least the FDA could require clear labeling of these products, so the consumer at least has half a chance of avoiding them if they are concerned. And who wouldn't be concerened about accidentally poisoning themselves on sewage-grown rice? [1] - http://www.fda.gov/forconsumers/consumerupdates/ucm319827.htm http://www.fda.gov/forconsumers/consumerupdates/ucm319827.ht...
- mikecane 14y ago>>>What happened to the FDA's mission to protect the consumer? It was basically eviscerated in the 1980s. One example is the increased amount of fat and bone allowed in meats. And did you forget about the infamous pink slime? FDA Approved!
- mistercow 14y ago1. While use of ammonium hydroxide is FDA approved, approval of pink slime is really under USDA's jurisdiction. 2. Of all the failings of government regulation and the FDA in particular, pink slime is such a red herring that it's hardly even worth mentioning. If you want examples of the FDA screwing up, you can find way better examples than that.
- mikecane 14y ago>>>pink slime is such a red herring So you think cast-off meat soaked in ammonia is a good thing? No, don't argue any science with me here. There is no way in hell this can be spun into anything good.
- maxerickson 14y agoI think it is probably safe to eat (a pro meat propaganda website I was just looking at claimed that ammonia was present at much higher levels in other foods; given the prevalence of nitrogen in the environment, that isn't especially ridiculous). Products using it should be required to say as much though.
- mikecane 14y ago>>>Products using it should be required to say as much though. Yes. But they don't want that, see? They don't want me and everyone else to be able to say No and spoil their payday.
- mistercow 14y agoIt's not soaked in ammonia. It's puffed with ammonia. And, no I don't think it's a good thing. I just don't think it's any worse than meat in general. The reason that pink slime caught the public imagination is that it sounds gross, but there's no scientific basis (and I will argue science because if you're going to go with your gut reaction, there's no point in discussing anything with you) for the hypothesis that adding pink slime to meat is harmful. And I find it pretty baffling that people can have no problem with raising an animal in bondage, shooting a metal slug through his or her brain, skinning the corpse, rending its flesh, and then shipping the chunks around the country to be eaten — but if any of it is slimy, they get squicked out.
- mikecane 14y ago>>>because if you're going to go with your gut reaction, there's no point in discussing anything with you Well that's how people react, so get used to it. I also reacted that way when I saw "Human Placental Extract" in a list of a woman's cosmetic ingredients. Full disclosure means you don't always get the nice welcome you want. EDIT to fix clumsy sentence.
- jcr 14y ago> What happened to the FDA's mission to protect the consumer? The formal name is "Regulatory Capture" [1] but the common name is simply corruption. The interesting thing the article fails to mention is most of the countries which the US imports rice from actually ban rice imports from the US. The US, specifically California central valley, had and mostly still has a huge rice industry, but since so many countries ban our imports farming rice not as profitable as it could be. The countries which ban rice imports from the US are typically trying to protect their own rice farmers. NOTE: I'm using the term "ban" in loose manner, since in some case they just make importing rice from the US painfully difficult and expensive though endless and unfair regulation. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
- hkmurakami 14y ago>The countries which ban rice imports from the US are typically trying to protect their own rice farmers. Japan's extremely inefficient agriculture sector (a model of corruption and government handouts, actually) is probably one of the most prominent offenders. (Their rice protectionism is both inefficient and corrupt)
- seanmcdirmid 14y agoThink how it must feel to be Thailand, who is the largest rice exporter in the world? The US comes in at number 4 after China and Vietnam and just before India.
- jcr 14y agoI'm unfamiliar with rice imports/exports/production in Thailand, so your question makes a loud "woooshing" noise over my head --I'm obviously missing something. The only reason why I know about the California rice situation is due to living in the area for a while and making friends with some of the farmers. BTW, on a totally different note, I've downloaded your "usable live programming" stuff from LtU (thanks!) but I still need to read/watch it.
- seanmcdirmid 14y ago
- alex_doom 14y ago"If you look through the scientific literature, especially on India and China, they irrigate their crops with raw sewage effluent and untreated industrial effluent," he explained." I guess that gives new meaning to rice that's "organic"
- aptwebapps 14y agoExcept for the "untreated industrial effluent" part, which is the scarier bit and presumably how the lead would get in.
- MichaelSalib 14y agoWhat happened to the FDA's mission to protect the consumer? Why aren't rice imports tested for heavy metals? You know why. Because that would be onerous government regulation. Americans are obsessed with the idea that the government overregulates everything. That's why Congress is unwilling to fund enforcement actions.
- anigbrowl 14y agoI can't upvote this hard enough.
- InclinedPlane 14y agoThe government does overregulate damned near everything. Even worse, it fails to regulate the right things. You can't buy Kinder Eggs in the US because of FDA regulations, and yet the FDA lets in literally tons of rice that is tainted with lead or arsenic. Does that seem like a problem to you? It seems like a problem to me.
- astrodust 14y agoNumber of kids that've died from lead poisoned rice: Zero. Number of kids that've died from eating a Kinder Surprise, Darwin's Law notwithstanding: At least one? If you want to complain about regulation, you're really complaining about people who don't want to take personal responsibility for their own actions. Rather than not buy Kinder Surprise treats for infants, they'd rather ban them for everyone just in case. Regulations, in many cases, just reflect collective attitudes.
- InclinedPlane 14y agoI'm not sure what sort of point you're trying to make. The major risk of lead poisoning isn't death it's the many other serious negative health effects, especially on children's development. Is there a particular reason why we should ignore lead exposure in children at levels several times higher than the current EPA limits? Moreover, if a simplistic analysis of deaths caused by "exposure" are to be used to guide policy then we should ban water first of all, along with buckets, gravity, and food.
- grannyg00se 14y agoThat is not an India and China problem. It is an industrial farming and industrial policy problem. From which the USA also suffers. http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/help-ban-sludge/ http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/help-ban-sludge/
- beedogs 14y ago> What happened to the FDA's mission to protect the consumer? Why aren't rice imports tested for heavy metals? You can thank Republicans, specifically the Bush administration, for neutering the FDA and the USDA. Apparently profit is more important than whether or not Americans are consuming poison in their food.
- DanBC 14y ago> "Dr Tongesayi also said that the increasing practice of sending electronic waste to developing countries - and the pollution it leads to - exacerbates the problem." The words "electronic waste" don't really convey the scale of the problem. I used to imagine piles of computers, with people able to strip out the copper, tin, lead, gold, aluminum, steel, etc for sale. I knew conditions would be a bit rougher than UK factories, but I imagined some kind of shack, and some kind of tools. Here's a snippet from a UK TV programme about the e-waste dump in Agbogbloshie, Accra, Ghana. It's pretty depressing. There's no kind of sensible plan to recovering useful stuff. Seeing a boy smashing polyester / polystyrene caps off an old PCB with a rock is just grim. (http://videobam.com/rcEUM http://videobam.com/rcEUM) Here's a link to the original programme (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00sch78 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00sch78)
- nmz787 14y ago"What happened to the FDA's mission to protect the consumer? Why aren't rice imports tested for heavy metals?" 'FDA spokesman Noah Bartolucci told BBC News that the "FDA plans to review the new research on lead levels in imported rice released today".' Seems like they're just laggy... is there requirement in law to test one gram of every Xth ton of imported food?
- harlox 14y agoIs anything safe to eat anymore?
- gph 14y agoSure, Lab-Grown Petri Dish Meat© is perfectly safe. *Name still pending, all rights reserved, GloboCorp Inc.
- uvdiv 14y agoYes, virtually everything. Out of about 10,000 samples of 731 different food products, the FDA found nothing within orders of magnitude of these lead levels. http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Food/FoodScienceResearch/TotalDietStudy/UCM184301.pdf http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Food/FoodScienceResearch/TotalD... pp. 69-80
- dhaivatpandya 14y agoI don't think this a new problem, its just one that has been hidden exceptionally well in "recent" times. The obvious example is The Jungle by Sinclair which was essentially publicity of precisely these problems, except in the beginnings of the 20th century. I highly doubt that the situation has been drastically improved, but, really hidden much more thoroughly from the public view.
- aaronbrethorst 14y agoGood thing the FDA is funded to appropriate levels to ensure that the rest of our food is safe! Oh wait... http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-204_162-57572066/sequester-may-lead-to-less-safe-food-fda-commissioner-says/ http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-204_162-57572066/sequester-may-l... The really frightening thing to me is that even before the sequester, the FDA has largely left it up to industry-approved 3rd party food inspectors to validate food safety. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-11/food-sickens-millions-as-industry-paid-inspectors-find-it-safe.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-11/food-sickens-millio...
- nicksergeant 14y agoWe heard about this a year ago and cut almost 95% of the rice in our diet. Now we have a rice dish about once a month or less. There were even warnings that small children should avoid rice completely. Unfortunately you just need to be proactive about what you put in your mouth, and don't assume that since you live in a "developed" country that everything sold is safe to eat. Don't even get me started on the FDA's stance of "all chemicals used in consumer goods are considered safe until proven otherwise" stuff.
- nicksergeant 14y agoSorry, not FDA, I meant EPA.
- rdouble 14y agoCouldn't you just buy rice grown in the USA?
- nicksergeant 14y agoNo, even US-grown rice suffers the same problem (not as the article, though). Basically rice in the southern US is grown in fields that used to be used for cotton, and the use of arsenic as a pesticide was allowed back then. Fast forward and they're using the same fields to grow rice, and the metals are still in the soil... I'll try and dig up some sources when I'm not mobile.
- rdouble 14y agoI found some sources on my own. Interesting. It looks like California rice is the safest, and white rice is better than brown.
- blinkingled 14y agoCare to list your sources? Thanks!
- 14y ago
- uvdiv 14y agoHere's an abstract from the researcher, Tsanangurayi Tongesayi. Not this exact presentation, but apparently the same research: Lead was present in all the foods samples and its concentration ranged from 4.3 to 17.9 µg/g. Some baby rice food had levels of Pb as high as 12.5±0.2 µg/g. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:d4lyxhrXhkQJ:abstracts.acs.org/chem/244nm/program/view.php%3Fpub_num%3D280%26par%3DENVR+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:d4lyxhr... (Google Cache because of the intellectual property circus). The FDA's recommended limit, expressed in total Pb ingested per day (only figure I could find), is The FDA’s recommended Provisional Total Tolerable Intake Level (PTTIL) for lead in children less than 6 years of age is 6 μg lead/day. For children 7 years and older, the PTTIL is 15 μg lead/day. It increases to 75 μg lead/day for adults (USFDA 1993). http://health.mo.gov/living/environment/hazsubstancesites/pdf/HercExposureInvestigation.pdf http://health.mo.gov/living/environment/hazsubstancesites/pd... This limit can be exceeded with a fraction of a gram of rice (for small children) -- literally a single grain. You could eat a small bullet's weight of lead in a few hundred kg -- several years of eating. And here's an FDA survey of the US food supply: 731 food products, about 10,000 samples, and nothing within orders of magnitude of this. http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Food/FoodScienceResearch/TotalDietStudy/UCM184301.pdf http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Food/FoodScienceResearch/TotalD... (pp. 69-80). Notably, their rice samples (#50) had undetectable amounts of lead, at a detection threshold of 0.007 mg/kg (= µg/g). (I'm beginning to suspect someone confused a mg/mcg/μg somewhere; that seems like the Occam's razor explanation. Otherwise, this looks really bad).
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- PakG1 14y agoIn China, the Occam's razor explanation is that the lead is really there. China's population is freaked out by food safety because of all the food scandals that have happened over the years. Melamanine in milk, for which milk company executives were actually executed, reuse and reselling of cooking oil found in gutters, the list goes on and on and on. I have no idea about the conditions in Taiwan, but in China, the Occam's razor explanation is unfortunately the negative option because it's proven to be so common. Recently for example, Hong Kong folks are super mad that mainland China folks are coming over and buying up all the milk powder for their babies. Why don't mainland China folks buy milk powder in mainland China? Well, there you go. edit: for those who haven't read the article, the article states, "The researchers found the highest levels of lead in rice from China and Taiwan"
- ra 14y agoSo is there a source of rice that is reliably free from Arsenic contamination?
- ars 14y agoRice from India had the least arsenic, but apparently now they have lead! I'm not sure there is anyplace that is safe.
- jcromartie 14y agoSpecifically, Chinese rice contains harmful levels of lead. If there is one lesson we've learned about consumer products in the last decade, it's don't eat anything from China.
- ekpqwekqp 14y agoThe Chinese invented rice, though. If you want to avoid chinky food, you shouldn't eat it at all.
- seanmcdirmid 14y agoThen what am I supposed to eat? Disclosure: I live in China. At home we eat Jasmine (Thai) rice since it is tastier anyways.
- lignuist 14y agoWhen it comes to food from china, it always reminds me of exploding watermelons due to excessive use of fertilizer: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13421374 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13421374
- gmac 14y agoI do vaguely try to avoid buying food from China, but some things are hard to find from anywhere else (ginger, for example).
- lignuist 14y agoPut some fresh ginger in some soil and start harvesting your own after a few months. http://herbgardens.about.com/od/indoorgardening/a/How-Can-I-Grow-My-Own-Ginger-Root-Indoors.htm http://herbgardens.about.com/od/indoorgardening/a/How-Can-I-...
- rdl 14y agoHawaiian ginger is really good.
- 13b9f227ecf0 14y agoThere's also seems to be a case against eating any concentrated feed lot raised meat from the USA. Russia and others have banned its import.
- ck2 14y agoI've been trying to find drinking straws not made in China. Makes me wonder what's in them with mouth contact. But this endeavor seems to have no solution, cannot find any.
- ern 14y agoAlthough I acknowledge that lead is nasty stuff, something about this issue bothers me. According to some studies, increasing exposure to lead at low levels (1-10 micrograms/dl) shaves 4-7 points off IQ scores[1]. Yet, as population blood lead levels have plunged in recent years, there haven't been proportionately massive gains in IQ in the population. Indeed, the Flynn effect may have stalled in recent years[2]. This either means that there are confounders or some other effect is in place. But I'm no expert, and I'd value the input of someone better informed. [1] http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa022848 http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa022848 [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect#Possible_end_of_progression http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect#Possible_end_of_pr...
- maxerickson 14y agoIf the lead exposure is a threshold effect, most of the population might have already banked the benefits of going below it. If it mostly impacts development (rather than ongoing performance), even more so.
- ern 14y agoIf the lead exposure is a threshold effect, most of the population might have already banked the benefits of going below it. Experts claim there is "no threshold"[1]. [1]http://www.chem.unep.ch/pops/pdf/lead/leadexp.pdf http://www.chem.unep.ch/pops/pdf/lead/leadexp.pdf
- jjuliano 14y agoAny data about rice in the Philippines? My family owns a farm in central Luzon, and I know that the majority of farmers there doesn't use irrigation from streams but instead uses a kerosine-powered pump deep-well system. I know this might sound anecdotal, but for more than 20 or so years I've been visiting our farms every summer, even farmers near the River streams uses deep-wells and rain water, and the irrigation that runs along the farms are from deep-wells. Also, here's a recent article about the Philippine rice are certified arsenic-free 'http://ph.news.yahoo.com/philippine-rice-certified-arsenic-free-122344970.html http://ph.news.yahoo.com/philippine-rice-certified-arsenic-f...
- GFischer 14y agoI was under the impression that rice in Uruguay is similarly lead-free, using water from the "Guaraní" aquifer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guarani_Aquifer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guarani_Aquifer I worry about the mushroom imports (I buy Chinese champignons and other stuff), maybe I should stop buying those.
- PunkRockDoc 14y agoHas anyone been able to find the actual journal article? I would like to read it and come to my own conclusions. I find it suspicious that I cant find it, but maybe I am just not looking hard enough.