US rice imports 'contain harmful levels of lead' | Hacker News Reader

US rice imports 'contain harmful levels of lead'

bbc.co.uk

114 pointsgnosis76 comments

Here's an abstract from the researcher, Tsanangurayi Tongesayi. Not this exact presentation, but apparently the same research:

Lead was present in all the foods samples and its concentration ranged from 4.3 to 17.9 µg/g. Some baby rice food had levels of Pb as high as 12.5±0.2 µg/g.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:d4lyxhr...

(Google Cache because of the intellectual property circus).

The FDA's recommended limit, expressed in total Pb ingested per day (only figure I could find), is

The FDA’s recommended Provisional Total Tolerable Intake Level (PTTIL) for lead in children less than 6 years of age is 6 μg lead/day. For children 7 years and older, the PTTIL is 15 μg lead/day. It increases to 75 μg lead/day for adults (USFDA 1993).

http://health.mo.gov/living/environment/hazsubstancesites/pd...

This limit can be exceeded with a fraction of a gram of rice (for small children) -- literally a single grain. You could eat a small bullet's weight of lead in a few hundred kg -- several years of eating.

And here's an FDA survey of the US food supply: 731 food products, about 10,000 samples, and nothing within orders of magnitude of this.

http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Food/FoodScienceResearch/TotalD...

(pp. 69-80). Notably, their rice samples (#50) had undetectable amounts of lead, at a detection threshold of 0.007 mg/kg (= µg/g).

(I'm beginning to suspect someone confused a mg/mcg/μg somewhere; that seems like the Occam's razor explanation. Otherwise, this looks really bad).

In China, the Occam's razor explanation is that the lead is really there. China's population is freaked out by food safety because of all the food scandals that have happened over the years. Melamanine in milk, for which milk company executives were actually executed, reuse and reselling of cooking oil found in gutters, the list goes on and on and on.

I have no idea about the conditions in Taiwan, but in China, the Occam's razor explanation is unfortunately the negative option because it's proven to be so common. Recently for example, Hong Kong folks are super mad that mainland China folks are coming over and buying up all the milk powder for their babies. Why don't mainland China folks buy milk powder in mainland China? Well, there you go.

edit: for those who haven't read the article, the article states, "The researchers found the highest levels of lead in rice from China and Taiwan"

Thanks for pulling those numbers. But something doesn't quite add up.. The first linked report says:

Samples of rice products from the US, South America, Asia, and Europe were purchased from local supermarkets and analyzed using XRF and GFAAS. Lead was present in all the foods samples and its concentration ranged from 4.3 to 17.9 µg/g.

So both domestic US rice and imported rice were in the 4.3-17.0 µg/g range, which if true would contradict the FDA's results, and mean that US rice was order-of-magnitude as dangerous as imported rice. What are we (or I) missing?

It doesn't make sense to me either. If the FDA found n.d. levels of lead in all their samples, you would expect some of the new study's samples to have low levels as well.

Right, the low end of the range should be much lower. Right now, my money is on a units error.

UPDATE: Here's the current abstract from the ACS.

Lead is a neurotoxin that severely impairs cognitive development and intellectual performance in children. It causes blood pressure and cardiovascular diseases in adults in addition to inducing calcium deficiency by replacing calcium in bones. Agriculture, mining and the general chemical industry are increasingly contaminating the environment, resulting in toxic heavy metal(loids) such as lead getting into agricultural food products. The level of environment contamination is not monolithic across the globe, thanks to geography and differences in environmental regulations. However, with the globalized food market, populations in both polluted and non-polluted geographical areas are equally at risk of lead exposure through food. We measured the levels of lead in rice that is imported into the U.S. using XRF and the data was validated using a NIST1568a reference sample. Lead levels ranged from 5.95±0.72 to 11.9±0.6 mg/kg and the calculated Daily Exposure amounts were significantly higher than the Provisional Total Tolerable Intakes for all age groups.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/acs-hlo031113...

"If you look through the scientific literature, especially on India and China, they irrigate their crops with raw sewage effluent and untreated industrial effluent," he explained."

...

"Dr Tongesayi also said that the increasing practice of sending electronic waste to developing countries - and the pollution it leads to - exacerbates the problem."

This is seriously scary!

I had no idea that the delicious Indian and Pakistani basmati rice that I buy from my local asian grocery store might have been grown in sewage!

They certainly don't advertise this at the grocery store. And this article mentions that high levels of arsenic in rice was a "well-known" problem, linking of FDA's advice on the matter:[1]

I had no idea about this either. Why isn't there more publicity about this?

What happened to the FDA's mission to protect the consumer? Why aren't rice imports tested for heavy metals?

If not an outright ban on products that fail to meet basic safety standards, at the very least the FDA could require clear labeling of these products, so the consumer at least has half a chance of avoiding them if they are concerned. And who wouldn't be concerened about accidentally poisoning themselves on sewage-grown rice?

[1] - http://www.fda.gov/forconsumers/consumerupdates/ucm319827.ht...

>>>What happened to the FDA's mission to protect the consumer?

It was basically eviscerated in the 1980s. One example is the increased amount of fat and bone allowed in meats. And did you forget about the infamous pink slime? FDA Approved!

1. While use of ammonium hydroxide is FDA approved, approval of pink slime is really under USDA's jurisdiction.

2. Of all the failings of government regulation and the FDA in particular, pink slime is such a red herring that it's hardly even worth mentioning. If you want examples of the FDA screwing up, you can find way better examples than that.

>>>pink slime is such a red herring

So you think cast-off meat soaked in ammonia is a good thing? No, don't argue any science with me here. There is no way in hell this can be spun into anything good.

I think it is probably safe to eat (a pro meat propaganda website I was just looking at claimed that ammonia was present at much higher levels in other foods; given the prevalence of nitrogen in the environment, that isn't especially ridiculous).

Products using it should be required to say as much though.

>>>Products using it should be required to say as much though.

Yes. But they don't want that, see? They don't want me and everyone else to be able to say No and spoil their payday.

It's not soaked in ammonia. It's puffed with ammonia. And, no I don't think it's a good thing. I just don't think it's any worse than meat in general. The reason that pink slime caught the public imagination is that it sounds gross, but there's no scientific basis (and I will argue science because if you're going to go with your gut reaction, there's no point in discussing anything with you) for the hypothesis that adding pink slime to meat is harmful.

And I find it pretty baffling that people can have no problem with raising an animal in bondage, shooting a metal slug through his or her brain, skinning the corpse, rending its flesh, and then shipping the chunks around the country to be eaten — but if any of it is slimy, they get squicked out.

>>>because if you're going to go with your gut reaction, there's no point in discussing anything with you

Well that's how people react, so get used to it. I also reacted that way when I saw "Human Placental Extract" in a list of a woman's cosmetic ingredients. Full disclosure means you don't always get the nice welcome you want.

EDIT to fix clumsy sentence.

The issue under discussion was "the FDA's mission to protect the consumer". FDA-approved products that sound bad but aren't bad are irrelevant to that discussion. It's not about public reaction. It's about objective facts.

> What happened to the FDA's mission to protect the consumer?

The formal name is "Regulatory Capture" [1] but the common name is simply corruption.

The interesting thing the article fails to mention is most of the countries which the US imports rice from actually ban rice imports from the US. The US, specifically California central valley, had and mostly still has a huge rice industry, but since so many countries ban our imports farming rice not as profitable as it could be. The countries which ban rice imports from the US are typically trying to protect their own rice farmers.

NOTE: I'm using the term "ban" in loose manner, since in some case they just make importing rice from the US painfully difficult and expensive though endless and unfair regulation.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

>The countries which ban rice imports from the US are typically trying to protect their own rice farmers.

Japan's extremely inefficient agriculture sector (a model of corruption and government handouts, actually) is probably one of the most prominent offenders. (Their rice protectionism is both inefficient and corrupt)

Think how it must feel to be Thailand, who is the largest rice exporter in the world? The US comes in at number 4 after China and Vietnam and just before India.

I'm unfamiliar with rice imports/exports/production in Thailand, so your question makes a loud "woooshing" noise over my head --I'm obviously missing something.

The only reason why I know about the California rice situation is due to living in the area for a while and making friends with some of the farmers.

BTW, on a totally different note, I've downloaded your "usable live programming" stuff from LtU (thanks!) but I still need to read/watch it.

Import quotas hurt Thailand the most since they export the most. Its a shame too, because they produce the best rice.

If you are a big rice consumer, you should really at least try Thai rice; it is higher quality than the Chinese/Japanese variety, the grain is a bit longer and so it cooks a bit drier (think fluffier). The second best rice on the market is from Taiwan, but they aren't a big producer.

Hope you enjoy the paper. I wrote it to make just one point; should hopefully be an easy read.

"If you look through the scientific literature, especially on India and China, they irrigate their crops with raw sewage effluent and untreated industrial effluent," he explained."

I guess that gives new meaning to rice that's "organic"

Except for the "untreated industrial effluent" part, which is the scarier bit and presumably how the lead would get in.

What happened to the FDA's mission to protect the consumer? Why aren't rice imports tested for heavy metals?

You know why. Because that would be onerous government regulation. Americans are obsessed with the idea that the government overregulates everything. That's why Congress is unwilling to fund enforcement actions.

I can't upvote this hard enough.

The government does overregulate damned near everything. Even worse, it fails to regulate the right things. You can't buy Kinder Eggs in the US because of FDA regulations, and yet the FDA lets in literally tons of rice that is tainted with lead or arsenic.

Does that seem like a problem to you? It seems like a problem to me.

Number of kids that've died from lead poisoned rice: Zero.

Number of kids that've died from eating a Kinder Surprise, Darwin's Law notwithstanding: At least one?

If you want to complain about regulation, you're really complaining about people who don't want to take personal responsibility for their own actions. Rather than not buy Kinder Surprise treats for infants, they'd rather ban them for everyone just in case.

Regulations, in many cases, just reflect collective attitudes.

I'm not sure what sort of point you're trying to make. The major risk of lead poisoning isn't death it's the many other serious negative health effects, especially on children's development. Is there a particular reason why we should ignore lead exposure in children at levels several times higher than the current EPA limits?

Moreover, if a simplistic analysis of deaths caused by "exposure" are to be used to guide policy then we should ban water first of all, along with buckets, gravity, and food.

I suffered through childhood lead poisoning and I'm still here on HN!

Does that seem like a problem to you? It seems like a problem to me.

Your argument proves too much. I mean, this does sound like a problem, but it sounds like the same problem I've encountered in every government I've dealt with and in every corporation I've worked for. It is one of the fundamental problems of human organizations operating with rules. The rule sets are both too strict and too lenient. But what is the alternative to rule sets? Philosopher kings?

I tell you what: since we both agree that it is a problem, why don't you list some large organizations that consistently promulgate rule sets which everyone agrees neither underregulate nor overregulate?

No, it's because their mission above all else is now to reinforce big pharma.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/prescription/h...

Personally, I'd prefer to assume more of the responsibility for selecting healthful food for my family, if it came with the freedom to choose it. I've run into a number of "harm in the name of help" regulations in that regard. For example, in order to sell meat in packaged cuts, it must be butchered at a USDA inspected facility. That sounds sensible at first glance, but it creates a problem for people who want humanely-raised, hormone and antibiotic free meat: running a USDA inspected processing facility is very expensive, and the only way to do it (currently) is to go for large volume. That means that the same facility that processes the conventional meat will be processing my meat, exposing it to both chemicals and pathogens that it would never otherwise have come into contact with (resistant forms of e. coli, among other things). In a large facility such as that, contamination from one animal has the potential to spread to many more. Health threats from this are uncommon, but they do happen and the size of the facilities means that their effects are widespread rather than localized.

Add to that the common practice of adding fat (from other animals) to ground meat, and you end up with a recipe for reduced-quality meat. One of the biggest reasons to eat grass-finished meat is its balance of omega fatty acids. When the leaner grass-finished meat is fatted up with fat from industrial animals, that benefit is lost. The regulation that was meant to help did help in the average, but it also made it more difficult to go beyond average.

One side-effect of regulation in agriculture in general seems to be to cut the small producers off from the bottom by centralizing and raising inspection costs. That in turn reduces diversity in the food supply and makes it more prone to large-scale outbreaks of problems (e.coli in spinach recently comes to mind).

It also has a second effect, which is that people trust food too much (rice from China seems to be a case in point). Because all food is inspected and certified transparently by someone else, consumers take little interest in the process, which makes it easier for things that aren't on the standard inspection list to escape notice.

Personally, I'd love to see a voluntary style of inspection, where a producer can opt in to one or more inspection programs in order to receive a certification. Consumers would then look for labels indicating whatever style of inspection they prefer (right now we basically have organic and not organic, but there are many others that might be relevant). There is definitely a need for inspection in the food supply, but I think that our current model of forcing all producers into a tiny number of alternatives is less than optimal.

Producers and merchants of food have no reason not to lie to you about that food, including with bogus inspection programs and simply failing to measure.

That is why the government plays a natural role in regulating food safety.

Actually, there are good reasons not to lie about that kind of thing. There are large costs associated with setting up a food production business, and as a result it is important to maintain a good reputation. If you are falsely advertising that you have been inspected to meet standard X, then the owners of standard X will eventually find you, sue you, and you will suffer large losses, both in legal damages and lost business due to reputation damage. Because of the large expense for getting started, it's hard to start over with a clean slate.

Also, I didn't make the claim that there is no role for government, only that inspections should be more diverse and voluntary. If government enforced a truth-in-advertising kind of regulation, where there are penalties for claiming false certifications beyond just reputation damage, I think that would be a much more beneficial arrangement.

"If you are falsely advertising that you have been inspected to meet standard X, then the owners of standard X will eventually find you, sue you, and you will suffer large losses, both in legal damages and lost business due to reputation damage."

Yet fears like these didn't stop massive fraud from companies like Enron,[1][2] companies in China adulterating milk with melamine,[3] and plenty of other companies making and growing food in unhygenic conditions and causing disease outbreaks.[4]

Time and again, some people will try to get away with the most eggregious crimes to make a quick buck, and damn the consequences. Relying on corporate self-regulation and the magic hand of the free market is incredibly naive.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Corporate_scandals

[3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal

[4] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:21st-century_health_d...

You are correct, but I'd point out that the fear of regulatory consequences didn't stop them either, as evidenced by the fact that their actions were illegal. Regulation from the top is one way to approach this problem, which is neither perfectly effective (ref. your links) nor free of negative side effects. No solution is perfect, including the voluntary inspections I'm talking about. My point is merely that there are other reasons to distrust regulation as a one-stop solution for all food problems, as seemed to be the contention of the parent of my original post.

The government inspectors and agencies are just people, just like any other inspection agency would be. As such, they are subject to the same sets of errors and failures. They are likely neither more nor less effective than a private counterpart playing the same role would be. What I'm attempting to advocate is that consumers should have a say in what is being inspected, and how, and by whom, and that I think the best way to accomplish that is through a diverse, voluntary inspection program with labeling requirements. If you believe that is "incredibly naive" that's okay with me. I would say the same thing about trusting a single, central authority to create a one-size-fits-all set of best practices for a food system that feeds hundreds of millions of people.

"I'd point out that the fear of regulatory consequences didn't stop them either"

I wouldn't rely on regulatory consequences to keep them from trying to defraud the consumer or trying to get away with unsafe and unhygenic practices. Though such regulatory consequences would still be far preferable to self-regulation or relying on the free market to do the job.

But what I would like rely on (if we had it) is thorough, randomized, mandatory inspections of food before it makes it on to the grocery shelves.

If rice had to be inspected for the presence of unsafe levels of heavy metals before it could be sold in the US, we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.

Clear labeling of heavy metal content on that rice which does pass inspection would also be a big help.

"What I'm attempting to advocate is that consumers should have a say in what is being inspected, and how, and by whom, and that I think the best way to accomplish that is through a diverse, voluntary inspection program with labeling requirements."

I don't see why we couldn't have both.

Foods should have to meet basic safety standards (like not containing unsafe levels of heavy metals) before being sold. In addition, if independent agencies, consumers, and corporations want to do additional inspection and labeling, that would be great! I'm all for it.

"If you believe that is "incredibly naive" that's okay with me. I would say the same thing about trusting a single, central authority to create a one-size-fits-all set of best practices for a food system that feeds hundreds of millions of people."

The reason centralized regulation in the US doesn't work as well as it could is because the ideological "pro-business" stance of many US politicians and their constituents have allowed the regulators to get in bed with the industries they're supposed to be regulating. On top of that, anti-regulation ideologues have tried to hobble the regulators at every turn by depriving them of funding, eliminating regulations, and lowering safety standards. Finally, corporations have way too much say in what safety standards and regulations they have to meet -- so they usually lobby for the lowest levels possible. The mess we're in is a direct result of that, and not of centralized regulation being inherently unworkable.

Getting rid of centralized regulation entirely would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. What centralized regulation needs is more funding, stricter safety standards, more consumer advocate involvement, and greater distance from the industries they're regulating. Banning corporate lobbying would also be a big help.

That is not an India and China problem. It is an industrial farming and industrial policy problem. From which the USA also suffers.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/help-ban-sludge/

> What happened to the FDA's mission to protect the consumer? Why aren't rice imports tested for heavy metals?

You can thank Republicans, specifically the Bush administration, for neutering the FDA and the USDA.

Apparently profit is more important than whether or not Americans are consuming poison in their food.

> "Dr Tongesayi also said that the increasing practice of sending electronic waste to developing countries - and the pollution it leads to - exacerbates the problem."

The words "electronic waste" don't really convey the scale of the problem.

I used to imagine piles of computers, with people able to strip out the copper, tin, lead, gold, aluminum, steel, etc for sale. I knew conditions would be a bit rougher than UK factories, but I imagined some kind of shack, and some kind of tools.

Here's a snippet from a UK TV programme about the e-waste dump in Agbogbloshie, Accra, Ghana. It's pretty depressing. There's no kind of sensible plan to recovering useful stuff. Seeing a boy smashing polyester / polystyrene caps off an old PCB with a rock is just grim.

(http://videobam.com/rcEUM)

Here's a link to the original programme (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00sch78)

"What happened to the FDA's mission to protect the consumer? Why aren't rice imports tested for heavy metals?"

'FDA spokesman Noah Bartolucci told BBC News that the "FDA plans to review the new research on lead levels in imported rice released today".'

Seems like they're just laggy... is there requirement in law to test one gram of every Xth ton of imported food?

Good thing the FDA is funded to appropriate levels to ensure that the rest of our food is safe! Oh wait...

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-204_162-57572066/sequester-may-l...

The really frightening thing to me is that even before the sequester, the FDA has largely left it up to industry-approved 3rd party food inspectors to validate food safety.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-11/food-sickens-millio...

We heard about this a year ago and cut almost 95% of the rice in our diet. Now we have a rice dish about once a month or less. There were even warnings that small children should avoid rice completely.

Unfortunately you just need to be proactive about what you put in your mouth, and don't assume that since you live in a "developed" country that everything sold is safe to eat.

Don't even get me started on the FDA's stance of "all chemicals used in consumer goods are considered safe until proven otherwise" stuff.

Sorry, not FDA, I meant EPA.

Couldn't you just buy rice grown in the USA?

No, even US-grown rice suffers the same problem (not as the article, though). Basically rice in the southern US is grown in fields that used to be used for cotton, and the use of arsenic as a pesticide was allowed back then.

Fast forward and they're using the same fields to grow rice, and the metals are still in the soil...

I'll try and dig up some sources when I'm not mobile.

I found some sources on my own. Interesting. It looks like California rice is the safest, and white rice is better than brown.

Care to list your sources? Thanks!

I just googled "rice arsenic" and read the first page of results.

White is better than brown? Isn't white just brown with the brown removed?

Yes, but it's a lot easier to buy the rice as white rice than it is to remove the part of the plant that is harbouring the toxin at home. Even in plants, different tissues do different things.

Depends on what you mean by with the brown removed It isn't bleached white. It is like they sold white and brown potatoes at the store, where a white potato was a pealed brown potato. Just as with potatoes, apples and others, the nutrients as well as the harmful stuff tends to collect in the skin.

That's not across the board, though. My family grows rice in northeastern arkansas in fields that have not been treated as such. Still spray for bugs though.

I eat a couple cups of brown rice a day. Now arsenic and lead. I need to find a new carb source. Hopefully oatmeal is still ok.

I don't think this a new problem, its just one that has been hidden exceptionally well in "recent" times.

The obvious example is The Jungle by Sinclair which was essentially publicity of precisely these problems, except in the beginnings of the 20th century. I highly doubt that the situation has been drastically improved, but, really hidden much more thoroughly from the public view.

Specifically, Chinese rice contains harmful levels of lead. If there is one lesson we've learned about consumer products in the last decade, it's don't eat anything from China.

Then what am I supposed to eat?

Disclosure: I live in China. At home we eat Jasmine (Thai) rice since it is tastier anyways.

When it comes to food from china, it always reminds me of exploding watermelons due to excessive use of fertilizer: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13421374

I do vaguely try to avoid buying food from China, but some things are hard to find from anywhere else (ginger, for example).

Put some fresh ginger in some soil and start harvesting your own after a few months.

http://herbgardens.about.com/od/indoorgardening/a/How-Can-I-...

Hawaiian ginger is really good.

There's also seems to be a case against eating any concentrated feed lot raised meat from the USA. Russia and others have banned its import.

Although I acknowledge that lead is nasty stuff, something about this issue bothers me.

According to some studies, increasing exposure to lead at low levels (1-10 micrograms/dl) shaves 4-7 points off IQ scores[1].

Yet, as population blood lead levels have plunged in recent years, there haven't been proportionately massive gains in IQ in the population. Indeed, the Flynn effect may have stalled in recent years[2].

This either means that there are confounders or some other effect is in place. But I'm no expert, and I'd value the input of someone better informed.

[1] http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa022848 [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect#Possible_end_of_pr...

If the lead exposure is a threshold effect, most of the population might have already banked the benefits of going below it.

If it mostly impacts development (rather than ongoing performance), even more so.

If the lead exposure is a threshold effect, most of the population might have already banked the benefits of going below it.

Experts claim there is "no threshold"[1].

[1]http://www.chem.unep.ch/pops/pdf/lead/leadexp.pdf

Any data about rice in the Philippines?

My family owns a farm in central Luzon, and I know that the majority of farmers there doesn't use irrigation from streams but instead uses a kerosine-powered pump deep-well system.

I know this might sound anecdotal, but for more than 20 or so years I've been visiting our farms every summer, even farmers near the River streams uses deep-wells and rain water, and the irrigation that runs along the farms are from deep-wells.

Also, here's a recent article about the Philippine rice are certified arsenic-free 'http://ph.news.yahoo.com/philippine-rice-certified-arsenic-f...

I was under the impression that rice in Uruguay is similarly lead-free, using water from the "Guaraní" aquifer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guarani_Aquifer

I worry about the mushroom imports (I buy Chinese champignons and other stuff), maybe I should stop buying those.

I've been trying to find drinking straws not made in China.

Makes me wonder what's in them with mouth contact.

But this endeavor seems to have no solution, cannot find any.

Is anything safe to eat anymore?

You mean "Spam"? Already trademarked.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_vitro_meat

Ok, that's disgusting.

Yes, virtually everything. Out of about 10,000 samples of 731 different food products, the FDA found nothing within orders of magnitude of these lead levels.

http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Food/FoodScienceResearch/TotalD...

pp. 69-80

So is there a source of rice that is reliably free from Arsenic contamination?

Rice from India had the least arsenic, but apparently now they have lead!

I'm not sure there is anyplace that is safe.

Has anyone been able to find the actual journal article? I would like to read it and come to my own conclusions. I find it suspicious that I cant find it, but maybe I am just not looking hard enough.

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