FDA: Arsenic in rice OK to eat
By Sabrina Tavernise, New York Times
WASHINGTON — The Food and Drug Administration announced Friday that it had found no evidence that current levels of arsenic in rice pose an immediate health risk.
The finding comes two months after the agency proposed new limits on arsenic in apple juice. A public outcry had caused the agency to look at the issue more closely.
The agency tested more than 1,300 types of rice and rice products, like rice cakes and infant cereals, and found that arsenic levels ranged from 3 to 7 micrograms per serving, amounts that the agency said were not hazardous to human health in the short term.
Most rice contains much higher levels of arsenic than apple juice does, said Keeve Nachman, a scientist who studies arsenic in food at the Center for a Livable Future at Johns Hopkins University, but because there is such a wide variety of products made with it, and because it is present at such different levels, the analysis for rice is more complicated.
