title: 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 (10-4) 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.
authors.affiliation: MOE Laboratory of Groundwater Circulation and Evolution, School of Water Resources and Environment, China University of Geosciences (Beijing) , Beijing 100083, China.
authors.forename: Yuanan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Organic Geochemistry, Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Guangzhou 510640, China.
authors.forename: Wenfeng
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: MOE Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University , Beijing 100871, China.
authors.forename: Hefa
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-4911-6971
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.affiliation: MOE Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University , Beijing 100871, China.
authors.forename: Shu
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-7374-7063
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tao
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001151:Arsenic; D002645:Chickens; D002681:China; D006801:Humans; D011200:Poultry; D011634:Public Health
chemical_list: D001151:Arsenic