Is Pfizer Adding Cancer to Your Dinner?

According to its recent actions, maybe it is. Pfizer PFE said Wednesday that it would (eventually) stop selling the (cancer-causing?) chicken feed ingredient Roxarsone that the FDA believes causes high arsenic levels in chickens. Yes, you read that right. Your chicken dinner just might come with a side of cancer. "Arsenic in chicken production poses a risk not only to human health, but to the environment," said Michael Hansen, a senior scientist with Consumers Union, which publishes Consumer Reports. "We need to get arsenic out of food production altogether." Pfizer said that a subsidiary, Alpharma LLC, is suspending sales next month in response to the FDA findings. Pfizer wants to give producers some time to take their chickens off the drug and presumably put them on something else, perhaps a drug that won't introduce poison into the food supply. Not that the drug won't still be in the food supply somewhere. The company will still sell the drug overseas to the dozen or so countries that haven't yet banned the poison. Seriously. According to a spokesman, Pfizer will reach out to regulatory authorities in each of those countries and decide on a case-by-case basis whether to sell it. Apparently, it is ok to make a profit poisoning people, so long as those people aren't Americans. Roxarsone is not even the only arsenic-containing drug Pfizer sells as bird feed. Nitarsone also contains arsenic and is fed to chickens and turkeys. While it is used less frequently than Roxarsone, it could potentially replace the drug in food chains starting next month. That would be fantastic, wouldn't it? Trade one carcinogen for another. And they say the FDA has no teeth! Pfizer's stock jumped a bit this morning, but very well could tumble in the near future — particularly if an enterprising lawyer starts a class-action lawsuit on behalf of every American exposed to this carcinogen on their dinner plate over the last 60 years. The National Chicken Council, which unsurprisingly pimps out companies that produce and process chickens, said in a statement that the carcinogen is used to maintain good health in chickens, and that it is used in "many, but not all" flocks. In a related story, your neighborhood cocaine dealer insists that his stuff is pure, non-addictive, and absolutely not going to kill you.