[House] Arsnic in Rice

[Robin Lee Powell]

To put it another way: if rice was *actually making people sick*,
we'd know, because places like the WHO and the FDA, whose job it is
to notice when bunches of people are getting sick, would notice.  If
it's not actually making people sick, who cares?

On Tue, Jan 06, 2015 at 08:53:00PM -0800, Robin Lee Powell wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 06, 2015 at 07:09:41PM -0800, Ruth Anne wrote:
> > 
> > A Consumer Reports article about arsnic in rice. It's recommended that
> > children NOT consume rice milk or rice pasta. Thoughts?
> > 
> > 
> > http://www.greenerchoices.org/pdf/CR_FSASC_Arsenic_Analysis_Nov2014.pdf
> 
> It looks like fear mongering to me.
> 
> According to the WHO, if your *drinking water* (i.e. stuff you
> ingest constantly) has more than 50 mcg/liter, you'll eventually
> have trouble.  Like, after 5 or more years (see
> http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs372/en/ ).
> 
>   In 2010, the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives
>   (JECFA) re-evaluated the effects of arsenic on human health,
>   taking new data into account. JECFA concluded that for certain
>   regions of the world where concentrations of inorganic arsenic in
>   drinking-water exceed 50–100 μg/litre, there is some evidence of
>   adverse effects. In other areas, where arsenic concentrations in
>   water are elevated (10–50 μg/litre), JECFA concluded that while
>   there is a possibility of adverse effects, these would be at a low
>   incidence that would be difficult to detect in epidemiological
>   studies.
> 
> The FDA's testing (
> http://www.fda.gov/Food/FoodborneIllnessContaminants/Metals/ucm319948.htm )
> says:
> 
>   FDA’s analysis of its approximately 1,300 samples found average
>   levels of inorganic arsenic for the various rice and rice products
>   of 0.1 to 7.2 micrograms of inorganic arsenic per serving. Serving
>   sizes varied depending on the rice product. For example, one
>   serving of non-Basmati rice is equal to one cup cooked, whereas
>   one serving of a rice-based snack bar may contain only ¼ cup of
>   rice.
> 
> So think about how much you'd get in 50 mcg/l of your drinking
> water, and compare that to ~3 mcg per cup of rice.
> 
> I find myself unconcerned.
> 
> For a sense of scale, the LD50 of arsenic in rats ~700 mg/kg, so,
> tens of thousands of times the doses we're talking about.
> 
> -- 
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> 
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-- 
http://intelligence.org/ :  Our last, best hope for a fantastic future.
.i ko na cpedu lo nu stidi vau loi jbopre .i dafsku lu na go'i li'u .e
lu go'i li'u .i ji'a go'i lu na'e go'i li'u .e lu go'i na'i li'u .e
lu no'e go'i li'u .e lu to'e go'i li'u .e lu lo mamta be do cu sofybakni li'u