Plan B Forum

High levels of lead detected in rice imported from certain countries


Michael Bernstein
202-872-6042
m_bernstein@acs.org

Michael Woods
202-872-6293
m_woods@acs.org

Note to journalists: Please report that this research was presented at a meeting of the American Chemical Society.

NEW ORLEANS, April 8, 2013 — Rice imported from certain countries contains high levels of lead that could pose health risks, particularly for infants and children, who are especially sensitive to lead’s effects, and adults of Asian heritage who consume large amounts of rice, scientists said here today. Their research, which found some of the highest lead levels in baby food, was among almost 12,000 reports scheduled for the 245th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society, which continues through Thursday.

Tsanangurayi Tongesayi, Ph.D., who headed the analysis of rice imported from Asia, Europe and South America, pointed out that imports account for only 7 percent of the rice consumed in the United States. With vast rice fields in Louisiana, California, Texas, Arkansas and Mississippi, the U.S. is a major producer and exporter of the grain. However, imports of rice and rice flour are increasing ― by more than 200 percent since 1999 ― and rice is the staple food for 3 billion people worldwide, he added.

Bowl of cooked white rice
Rice imported from some countries, which
accounts for less than 10 percent of all rice
consumed in the United States, contains high
levels of lead, according to research presented
at a meeting of the American Chemical Society.
Credit: Photodisc/Thinkstock

“Such findings present a situation that is particularly worrisome given that infants and children are especially vulnerable to the effects of lead poisoning,” Tongesayi said. “For infants and children, the daily exposure levels from eating the rice products analyzed in this study would be 30-60 times higher than the FDA’s provisional total tolerable intake (PTTI) levels. Asians consume more rice, and for these infants and children, exposures would be 60-120 times higher. For adults, the daily exposure levels were 20-40 times higher than the PTTI levels.”

The research was part of a symposium titled “Food and Its Environment: What Is In What We Eat?”

Other presentations at the symposium included:

A new analysis of edible clay powders and protein powders.
The latest results of monitoring flame retardant levels in Great Lakes fish.
A new method to monitor potentially hazardous substances in food packaging.

Abstracts for the symposium appear below.

Tongesayi’s team, which is with Monmouth University in N.J., found that levels of lead in rice imported into the United States ranged from 6 to 12 milligrams/kilogram. From those numbers, they calculated the daily exposure levels for various populations and then made comparisons with the FDA’s PTTI levels for lead. They detected the highest amounts of lead in rice from Taiwan and China. Samples from the Czech Republic, Bhutan, Italy, India and Thailand had significantly high levels of lead as well. Analysis of rice samples from Pakistan, Brazil and other countries were still underway.

Because of the increase in rice imports into the United States, Tongesayi said that rice from other nations has made its way into a wide variety of grocery stores, large supermarket chains and restaurants, as well as ethnic specialty markets and restaurants.

To automatically receive news releases from the American Chemical Society contact newsroom@acs.org.

Tsanangurayi Tongesayi, Ph.D., who headed the analysis of rice imported from Asia, Europe and South America, pointed out that imports account for only 7 percent of the rice consumed in the United States. With vast rice fields in Louisiana, California, Texas, Arkansas and Mississippi, the U.S. is a major producer and exporter of the grain.

Do Birds Explode If They Eat Wedding Rice?
From the Mailbag

By David Emery, About.com Guide

Dear Urban Legends:

An urban legend that I've heard (most recently by a teacher during a discussion in a high school English class) is that you shouldn't throw rice at weddings, because after the party is over, birds will come and eat it. White rice, being as dehydrated as it is, will immediately begin absorbing water upon entering the moist environment of the bird's body. It will then swell up, and if there is enough of it in there, the bird's body (specifically the crop, where the food first goes to be stored) will burst, killing the poor little critter. Is there any truth to it?

No truth to it at all. In fact, wild rice is a dietary staple for many birds, as are other grains that expand in moisture such as wheat and barley.

One thing purveyors of this myth fail to take into account is that the rate at which dried grains absorb liquids is pretty darned slow unless it takes place at cooking temperature. Also, there's a biological process you may be familiar with called digestion. Long before any uncooked rice consumed by a bird could expand enough to cause harm, it would have already been ground up in its crop and in the process of being broken down into nutrients and waste by the acids and enzymes in the bird's digestive tract.

It's unclear exactly how and when this misconception originated, though it was most famously promulgated by advice columnist Ann Landers when she published a letter warning prospective brides and grooms against the practice of throwing rice at weddings on May 21, 1988:

Dear Ann: I have never seen this issue raised in your column, but it is something every prospective bride should think about, especially those who love birds.

I am getting married in September and I'd like to have birdseed thrown instead of rice. Hard, dry rice is harmful to birds. According to ecologists, it absorbs the moisture in their stomachs and kills them.

How can I get this message across to my guests, without sounding like some kind of a nut? My fiance is a bird lover, too, and says it's OK with him if I say this in the invitation. -- K.M.M., Long Island

Credulous as always, Landers noted in her reply that a Connecticut legislator had recently proposed a ban on rice throwing at weddings for precisely that reason. This was greeted with skepticism by bird experts everwhere, including Cornell ornithologist Steven C. Sibley, who wrote in a letter subsequently published by Landers, "There is absolutely no truth to the belief that rice (even instant) can kill birds. . . . I hope you will print this information in your column and put an end to this myth. In the meantime, keep throwing rice, folks. Tradition will be served and the birds will eat well and be healthy."

"As American as apples are (apple pie and all), Chinese apples dominate the apple juice market in the U.S. — the mainstay of brands including Motts, Tree Top and Apple & Eve. Chinese apple juice concentrate, a crystallized concoction reconstituted in the states, accounts for about 60% of the U.S. apple juice supply."

". But did food poisoning just seem to have gotten more prevalent because of increased media scrutiny? Or has the problem really gotten worse?

A new report from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) points to the latter. The report argues that outbreaks of food poisoning associated with the consumption of imported foods, in particular, have been on the rise. And the food that's making people sick is coming from places that weren't traditionally associated with food poisoning.

The report noted that imported foods were tied to 38 major outbreaks of food-borne illnesses between 2005 and 2010, sickening at least 2,348 people. And a disproportionally large share -- 17 out of the 38 -- took place at the tail end of the period, in 2009 and 2010.

The type of food that caused the most outbreaks was fish, followed by spices. The continent that was linked to the most outbreaks, with 45 percent of the total, was Asia. "

Why the increase in foreign foodborne disease? It may not be that the food is any less safe. We're just importing more of it.

Cod caught off Norway is shipped to China to be turned into filets, then shipped back to Norway for sale. Argentine lemons fill supermarket shelves on the Citrus Coast of Spain, as local lemons rot on the ground. Half of Europe’s peas are grown and packaged in Kenya.

rubato wrote:I am more than a little surprised that no one appears to care about this. Certainly it is more important than the circus side-show crap gob is always posting.


If we care about the future this is how we will change it. If we aren't as stupid as gob and LJ are.


yrs,
rubato

I am truly amazed at how little any of you thought about this

I presented data recently about the powerful connection between lead in the environment and violent crime rates and there is a wealth of information about how lead can permanently reduce the mental capacity of children. IMO we have more important and pressing problems to solve than how to cut taxes for the rich.

Tests indicating that rice imported to the US contained high levels of lead have been cast into doubt.

At a conference in April, researchers reported that commercially available rice contained many times more lead than US food authorities deemed safe.

The findings sparked international concern over imported rice.

But preliminary independent checks on the findings have failed to replicate the results, and tests suggest the equipment used may have been to blame.

The initial findings, revealed at a meeting of the American Chemical Society, reported on tests of rice imported to the US from eight nations.

The team, led by Tsanangurayi Tongesayi of Monmouth University in New Jersey, US, analysed rice using a technique called X-ray fluorescence.

Researchers claimed to have found levels of lead exceeding by a factor between 20 and 40 the "provisional total tolerable intake" for adults, set by the US Food and Drug Administration. Their report suggested that untreated wastewater used in irrigation was a likely cause.

Media reports, including that by BBC News, have caused concern internationally, prompting two members of the European Parliament to raise the issue formally and a follow-up study by the Dutch food safety authority NVW.

However, attempts to replicate the results have found levels far below those initially reported - between 6 and 12 parts per million (6,000 to 12,000 parts per billion).

Dr Tongesayi's team sent samples to another laboratory for analysis using a different technique - that study recorded levels below one part per million.

The team then put on hold planned publication of the findings in the Journal of Environmental Science and Health, for what Dr Tongesayi told BBC News was a "data verification exercise". The American Chemical Society was asked to remove the press release on the work from its website.

"The most important issue for me at this point is to make sure the data is accurate," Dr Tongesayi told BBC News in late April. "If it is not accurate, we will obviously not publish the paper."

The team subsequently sent the instrument used in the study back to its manufacturer, which has since reported that the machine has calibration problems.

The Dutch authorities' independent study of 26 samples of rice imported from Asian nations found average levels of seven parts per billion - a thousandth of those found in the original study - and with no samples above the EU limit of 200 parts per billion.

Dr Tongesayi's findings also stand in stark contrast to prior published research on lead in rice, most of which have been established using a technique called mass spectrometry, which allows for more precision.

The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) said in a blog post that "even where the soil is contaminated with a lead spill, a number of studies have shown that rice plants do not take up a significant amount of lead and move it to the grains".

Alex Waugh of the UK's Rice Association said that "in terms of work undertaken throughout Europe and the USA on rice of multiple origins, Dr Tongesayi's reported results stand out as being orders of magnitude higher than normal".

"This in itself ought to be enough to raise questions about whether his data are correct," he told BBC News.

In 2010, the European Food Safety Authority published a report outlining analysis of 612 rice samples from the EU, finding average levels of just a few tens of parts per billion.

An extensive study in 2012 by US magazine Consumer Reports, including rice and rice-based products such as rice cakes and drinks available in the US, measured lead levels even lower, with a majority of samples measuring less than five parts per billion.

The Federation of European Rice Millers told BBC News that "there is no published evidence of rice containing the levels of lead of [even] the same order of magnitude reported by Dr Tongesayi, and consequently no evidence of 'harmful levels' of lead in rice on the European market".

Dr Tongesayi told BBC News he was determined to reconcile his initial findings with the outcomes of subsequent analyses of his samples by other means, including the mass spectrometry method.

Sarah Beebout, a soil scientist with the IRRI, said: "I will be surprised if the independent analysis confirms these apparently anomalous results, but that will be a good starting point for scientific discussion and investigation if it happens."

Lord Jim wrote:One should never accept the results of a single unconfirmed study as a fact....

A real scientist would of course know this....