Nine Ten, a Big Fat Hen.
Are Arsenicals in Chicken Worth the Risk?
According to an article at Science Daily, “The annual per capita human consumption of poultry products is approximately 100 lbs. This is greater demand than that of any other animal- or vegetable-derived protein source in the U.S. To satisfy this demand, each year, the U.S. poultry industry raises nearly 9 billion broiler chickens” ("Banned Antibiotics”). In order to accomplish raising this many chickens the farmers have found it necessary to use antibiotic compounds containing arsenic. Arsenic is a medication that farmers put in the chicken feed to help chickens grow heavier at a much faster rate, help prevent diseases, and give support to tissue and vascular development. This will make the muscle of the chickens more appealing to the consumers (Greiff). Thus, they are produced in a much shorter time span. Critics of the use of growth promoters such as arsenicals point out disturbing side effects. For example: the chickens become extremely overweight. This reaches the point where their legs cannot even hold up their bodies. This causes them to fall over and eventually die. Some of the chickens that make it past the farms and into the grocery store can carry bacteria that can cause foodborne illnesses and can even cause cancer. Defenders of the use of the arsenic-containing antibiotics argue that with the use of these antibiotics, money can be saved not only by the company, but also for the consumers. The question becomes whether or not antibiotics containing arsenic should be used to produce chickens.
Until about 1960, chicken production would just be something people would do in the backyard to provide food for their family. These chickens were just used to supply the meat to be eaten for Sunday dinner ("Poultry Farming…”). It has since grown tremendously. With the discovery of vitamin D in the 20th century, chickens were allowed to be in “confinement” year around ("Poultry Farming…”) ("Background of Poultry Production in U.S."). Also when red meat was found to be a cause of high blood pressure, people started to turn to chicken in order to avoid the health risk of raising their blood pressure (“Poultry Farming…”). The chicken industry has since become the most successful part in agriculture ("U.S. Chicken…”). This increase in production started to take off in 1980 as a result of people becoming conscious of their health and more cautious in their eating habits and chicken was a healthier choice (“Poultry Production”). Another reason for this increase in poultry production was the beginning of chicken becoming a popular export for companies. From 1980 to 2000 there was an increase of 6,000,000 more pounds of chickens exported (“Poultry Production”). Finally, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), “Part of the increase in poultry production in the 1980s and 1990s can be attributed to the development of new, further-processed, value-added products” (“Poultry Production”). One of the examples they used to explain this was that eggs are not just eggs for breakfast anymore. They have started to be designed for liquid eggs. Liquid eggs are popularly used in hospitals, hotels, restaurants and many other places. This creates a faster way to make things without the mess of cracking and whipping the eggs.
Given the history of poultry production, I think it is important to also know the steps to get chicken ready for the market. According to Tyson website, (a chicken producing company), there are seven steps in the production of industrial chicken. These seven steps include: breeder flock, pullet farm, breeder house, hatchery, broiler farm, processing/further-processing, and distribution ("Chicken Production Process."). Tyson has a very detailed explanation for the process as follows:
The broiler chicken production process begins with the grandparent breeder flocks. The breeder flocks are raised to maturity in grandparent growing and laying farms where fertile eggs are produced. Pullets hatch from the fertile eggs, and they are sent to breeder houses. The pullets produce fertile eggs, which are sent to hatcheries. Shortly after the eggs hatch, the chicks are sent to broiler farms. There, contract growers’ care for and raise the chicks according to company standards. When the broilers reach the desired processing weight, they are caught and taken to processing plants. The finished chicken products are sent to distribution centers then transported to customers who sell the chicken to consumers. ("Chicken Production Process")

During the production process, the companies order some farmers to put arsenicals into the chicken feed to speed up the production process. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, “26.6 millions pounds of antibiotics are used for animals each year…” (Burros). In 1944 Roxarsone, a form of arsenic added to chicken feed, was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat Coccidiosis, a common parasitic disease in poultry, help chicken gain weight, and to improve meat pigmentation (gives chicken meat a “healthy color) (Nachman, et. al.). By 2010 eighty eight percent of about nine billion of the chickens produced were given Roxarsone . This is an arsenical containing compound/antibiotic which is also known as 3-Nitro (Nachman, et. al.).
There is a reason for why companies do the things they do during chicken production. One of the reasons why poultry companies use arsenicals is clearly money: less money spent by the consumers, and increased profits for the companies. With the increase of arsenical-containing antibiotics in the chicken feed, a lesser amount of feed is required. As a result, they are going to get three percent fatter than they would have without the use of arsenicals (‘Is your Meat…”). As a result they do not have to charge as much for the chicken. They also make more of a profit because they have saved hundreds of dollars in raising the chickens. The article “Antibiotic Feed Additives: Politics and Science,” written by Hector Cervantes, a manager for Poultry Technical Services, acknowledged some of the other benefits are animal welfare, improved production efficiency, and less contamination for the environment (Cervantes). Animal welfare has been improved as a result of arsenical compounds in feed additives. These have been scientifically shown to reduce stress in the immune system. Even in “healthy chickens,” kept under optimal sanitary, environmental and management conditions, the use of arsenicals in feed additives contributes to enhance the welfare of food-producing animals (Cervantes).
But if arsenicals improve animal welfare, we have to remember that the companies who instructed the farmers to use arsenicals in the feed are the ones who are creating an unsanitary environment. This allows for the spread of diseases such as salmonella and E. coli. Chickens may be raised in very low light intensities. Sometimes, they are raised in total darkness to reduce harmful pecking (“Poultry Farming”). Concerns have been raised that companies growing a single variety of birds for eggs or meat are increasing their susceptibility to disease (“Poultry Farming”). Rough handling, crowded transport during various weather conditions and the failure of existing stunning systems to render the birds unconscious before slaughter, have also been cited as welfare concerns (“Poultry Farming”). In Washington D.C., an animal rights group went undercover on a Maryland Farm that produces chicken for Kentucky Friend Chicken (KFC). The group went to the farm weekly for 45 days (“Kentucky Fried Cruelty”). This is the chicken’s entire lifespan. The results were mindboggling. They saw chickens crippled from breeding. Some of them could not even walk as a result of being drugged from the feed additives. One of the undercover agents, Michael Specter, was quoted as saying,
"I was almost knocked to the ground by the overpowering smell of feces and ammonia. My eyes burned and so did my lungs, and I could neither see nor breathe…. There must have been thirty thousand chickens sitting silently on the floor in front of me. They didn’t move, didn’t cluck. They were almost like statues of chickens, living in nearly total darkness, and they would spend every minute of their six-week lives that way."
So if this undercover agent went to this coop and there were so many chickens in there how is animal welfare a benefit? From the results of this event, it looks more like a disadvantage during this study that 20,000 chickens were in a single shed that allowed only 130 square inches of space per bird. This is an area which just a little larger than a sheet of printer paper. “(A COK Report...”) Though this amount of space it make it easier to feed the chickens, it is impossible for the birds to carry out normal behaviors. This also causes the chickens to suffer from stress and diseases (“A COK Report...”).
There are a lot of problems with feeding chickens arsenicals and these problems even transfer to humans when they consume the meat. When arsenic is fed to chickens, many people wonder just what happens to the meat that is eaten by the consumers. The results were that “Conventional chicken meat had higher iAs (inorganic arsenic) concentrations than did conventional antibiotic-free and organic chicken meat samples” (Nachman, et. al.). Inorganic arsenic is known to cause cancer to humans. The researchers also found that with the chickens, which had been raised using the arsenical drug could cause an average of 124 cancers per year (Nachman, et. al.). They figured this out by using a developed model for cancer created by EPA.
Channel 7 news in Denver, Colorado, was told by Foster Farms, a poultry company, says that, “…as long as the chicken is cooked to 165 degrees, the salmonella bacteria will be killed” (7News). Are Arsenicals readily present when people prepare the chicken? When people consume chicken that have been produced using the arsenical-containing antibiotics, they are faced with many challenges such as making sure the food is fully cooked and prepared in the right manner. There was a recent outbreak of food poisoning in 18 states. According to the channel 7news, Foster Farms said they were not going to recall the meat. The Company claimed that the food poisoning was the result of the people not cooking the food correctly. That was the reason why they had gotten sick (7News…). While the study was being completed in December 2010, they did an experiment along with their study of seeing what arsenical drugs do to the meat. This study included cooking the meat to see if that would get rid of the drug. The researchers cut each tester in half, so they could compare the levels of the same meat, and cooked half of the meat. As they had previously guessed, it did not get rid of the high levels of arsenic. But there was something else that also alarmed them. The cooked pieces had higher levels of the arsenic than the ones that were raw (Nachman, et. al.). So with the proof that cooking the meat at the right temperature does not get rid of the arsenic, it is wondered what Foster Farms would have to say now? Foster Farms should have recalled the chicken and just accepted the responsibility for the problem. This basically was not done, because it was not a cost-effective measure.
Eating chicken containing arsenic not only can cause cancer as I stated above, but it can cause the consumer to have fewer major sicknesses, even though they are still serious. If the consumers have chronic arsenic exposure, meaning never ending exposure, the result can be headaches, low blood pressure, anemia, kidney damage and failure. Children can have decreased performance in tests of intelligence and long-term memory. Women can have premature pregnancy, miscarriages, or even cause them to have stillbirths (“FDA Finally Listened…”). Arsenicals can be found by testing blood, urine, hair or nails (“FDA Finally Listened…”). One of the most commons illnesses from chicken is salmonella poisoning. Chicken is one of the highest-ranking foods in health care at a cost of $2.4 billion a year (Batz, et. al., 10).
The Center of Food Safety has been trying to pass a law for the past three years to immediately remove arsenic-containing compounds in animal feed (The Center for Food Safety). But the FDA only recently just admitted that the Arsenical-containing antibiotics in chicken feeds could cause cancer(The Center for Food Safety). It has been said that the FDA does not want to ban arsenic because they think it will result in a decrease in productivity. And that means it will take longer to get chickens ready for market.
To me, big companies have a lot influence in dictating government polices. I think this way because the bigger the company the more money they are generating for the government, and so with that being said, the government goes a long with their wishes so it does not effect their income. Whether it is right or wrong they will do whatever to make sure that the companies will still give them money. One would think that if they know what the outcome of arsenical could be, they (FDA) would not want to eat the meat, if they even eat it, so why would they not stop it so that no one else gets cancer? The growth producing additives also have many adverse (negative) effects on the chickens. In a recent study “90 percent of the broilers had detectable leg problems, while 26 percent suffered chronic pain as a result of bone disease” (“A COK Report…”). Broilers are chickens that are raised specifically for meat. It is considered that these broilers may have been bred to grow so fast that they are on the verge of structural collapse (“A COK Report…”). Many broilers are grown so fast that their internal organs do not develop enough to support the rest of the body. This underdevelopment results in congestive heart failure and tremendous death loss (“A COK Report…”).
According to an article by Marian Burros, a journalist for New York Times, three major poultry companies, Foster Farm, Perdue, and Tyson, have made an improvement in cutting back on additives. Foster Farm claims they only use antibiotics on sick chickens, and Perdue says they use antibiotics that are different than the ones used for humans (Burros). As I explained earlier that there is 26.6 million pounds of antibiotics used and of that only 2 million pounds are used to treat sick animals (Burros). Using medicine to treat animals that are sick is a health risk for humans because they are treating them with medicine that is commonly used in medicine for humans. Frontline explained in an article called “Is your Meat Safe?” that when an animal is given an antibiotic over a period of time the bacteria will become unaffected against the drug. If a person does not cook the meat properly, then the medicine a doctor would give them will not treat the illness because the meat they digested is already resistant to it (“Is your Meat Safe?”).
From an animal right prospective the way chickens are treated in the production process is horrible. The farmer’s treatment is in humane. No animal, even if they are just for food production, deserves to be treated in that manner. The article “Why Animals Rights?” on the PETA website states “[t]hey feel pain, pleasure, fear, frustration, loneliness, and motherly love. Whenever we consider doing something that would interfere with their needs, we are morally obligated to take them into account” (“Why Animal Rights?”). Animals cannot talk to tell you if something hurts or to stop. They are defenseless and people use that as a way to treat them however they want. I feel if you would not want something done to your kids or to yourself then you should not do that to any animal. Ingrid Newkirk, a PETA founder, said, “When it comes to pain, love, joy, loneliness, and fear, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. Each one values his or her life and fights the knife” (“Why Animal Rights?”). This statement sounds corny but I value my life and would not want to be put under a knife and have my life ended.
The so-called benefits of using arsenical containing antibiotics have been shown to be more of a disadvantage to humans and the chickens. If improved animal welfare is supposedly one of the biggest advantages, then why are farmers giving chicken arsenical to treat the disease they (producers) are creating? I would not like to live in a place that made “my eyes burned and so did my lungs, and I could neither see nor breathe,” like the undercover agents did. Quite frankly I do not think anyone would, not even animals. So how can this be an advantage if it causes them to get sick? It just does not make sense.
Companies are being selfish to the fact that making chickens bigger faster is saving them and the consumer money. But if consumers get an infected batch of chicken, they will not be saving money. The money they saved will now being going towards health care. Isn’t your health more important than how much you pay for food? I feel that the money, which you spend to save you from putting harmful toxins in your body, is well worth it. If you really think about it, the money you spend on health care if you were to get a bad piece of chicken is going to be twice as much as the cost of the food, which you have purchased. As I mention previously we spent 2.4 billion dollars a year on health care (Batz, et. al., 10).
I also think that there has to be a way to make chicken production more effective without harming the chickens. I think that what producers are doing now is like animal abuse because they are basically making them unhealthy and miserable. We would not dare think to do this to any other animal, so why should we do it chickens? I have seen videos and picture while researching for this paper and they make me want to never eat chicken ever again. There was a video that had a chicken so fat that their legs were off the side of them and they were basically dragging the bodies across the floor so they could get to where they were going. This video also showed one chicken trying to get food but it was so fat that they could not even extend their legs to reach the food source. They had chicken dead in the food bowl and it was just so disgusting that it almost looked like the coop had not been cleaned since it was built.
Arsenical-containing antibiotics are used to help chickens grow heavier at a much faster rate, help prevent diseases, and give support to tissue and vascular development. Chicken producers use them every day and defended their use through everything. Critics have shown that they are not only dangerous to the chickens; they are also dangerous to humans. I believe chicken should not have ever been used unless they were to help prevent disease and only to help prevent diseases. The disadvantages of arsenical compounds outweigh any advantage in this situation. Getting rid of arsenicals in chicken feeds will help prevent cancer, illnesses, and lower health care cost. I think paying a little more for chicken meat is well worth the price of knowing I will not get sick. So when it come to answering the question whether or not arsenical-containing antibiotics should be used, I think that the answer is should be no. Not using them will help consumers have a lower risk of getting sick, and it will let chickens be healthier and live a more sanitary life.

Works Cited
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Nachman, Keeve E., Patrick A. Baron, Georg Raber, Kevin A. Francesconi, Ana Navas-Acien, and David C. Love. “Roxarsone, Inorganic Arsenic, and Other Arsenic Species in Chicken: A U.S.-Based Market Basket Sample.” Print. 2013.
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Pictures

Crossfield, Aula. "Civil Eats." Civil Eats Food Incs Carole Morison to Speak at DOJ Poultry Antitrust Workshop Comments. South Bend, 19 May 2010. Web. 22 Oct. 2013. <http://civileats.com/2010/05/19/food-inc-s-carole-morison-to-speak-at-doj-poultry-concentration-workshop/>.

"Food 101 with Michael Pollan." Oprah.com. Oprah.com, 21 Jan. 2010. Web. 22 Oct. 2013. <http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/The-Truth-About-Food-with-Michael-Pollan/2>.