Arsenic in U.S. rice.Researchers from Scotland's University of Aberdeen The University of Aberdeen is an ancient university founded in 1495, in Old Aberdeen, Scotland and a world-renowned centre for teaching and research. It is the fifth oldest university in the United Kingdom and the wider English-speaking world. reported in the 1 August 2005 issue of Environmental Science & Technology that U.S.-grown rice contains an average of 1.4 to 5.0 times more arsenic than rice from Europe, India, or Bangladesh. Most U.S. rice is grown in fields that once grew cotton, which depends on arsenic-based chemicals to kill boll weevils boll weevil or cotton boll weevil (bōl), cotton-eating weevil, or snout beetle, Anthonomus grandis. Probably of Mexican or Central American origin, it appeared in Texas about 1892 and spread to most cotton-growing and remove its leaves before harvesting. Because of the form that arsenic takes in plants, the rice may not pose a threat; arsenic found in drinking water drinking water supply of water available to animals for drinking supplied via nipples, in troughs, dams, ponds and larger natural water sources; an insufficient supply leads to dehydration; it can be the source of infection, e.g. leptospirosis, salmonellosis, or of poisoning, e.g. is estimated to be five times more toxic. However, one of the few epidemiological studies on eating a subsistence diet of arsenic-contaminated rice has linked it with an increase in bladder cancer bladder cancer Malignant tumour of the bladder. The most significant risk factor associated with bladder cancer is smoking. Exposure to chemicals called arylamines, which are used in the leather, rubber, printing, and textiles industries, is another risk factor. . |
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