Arsenic & Cheap Wine (Part 1)
I wasn’t going to post anything today. I was too busy contemplating some of the responses to my recent post about the perils of drinking milk.
There are some real stout defenders of the dairy industry (perhaps some fiscally motivated) and several felt the need to email me directly and/or try and post (so glad our platform has a profanity filter which does not allow profane posts to go live) implications that I am having or perhaps have had some illicit interactions with my mother, insinuations which I heartily deny.
The less profane simply let me know how misinformed I am, and that if I know nothing about milk and its benefits then I shouldn’t talk about it.
Ok fine. Let me now say that if I know nothing about milk, I know even less about wine. Nevertheless my proverbial pen is in motion, and I expect the wine industry shills to hit me hard this weekend, perhaps again invoking my poor mother into a discussion she has nothing to do with (she doesn’t even have the Internet). People get very sensitive when you say something they don’t agree with these days. Debate and discussion go out the window. Vitriolic attack seems to be the only response to dissenting points of view. Apologies, I digress.
I got this text from my wife at exactly 12:45 P.M. today, March 20, 2015. That’s about 2 hours and 10 minutes before I began this post:
"Oh no that's the ones we get!" http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/wine-lawsuit-cheap-inexpensive-arsenic--296946211.html
What can this be? I said to myself. It seems that a class action lawsuit between a handful of plaintiffs representing themselves and those “similarly situated” and a heck of a lot of wine producers (all listed on the first two pages of the actual complaint) alleging “...that several California wineries...produce and market wines that contain dangerously high levels of inorganic...arsenic, in some cases up to 500% or more than what is considered the maximum acceptable safe daily intake limit. Put differently, just a glass or two of these arsenic-contaminated wines a day over time could result in dangerous arsenic toxicity to the consumer.”
My first question was “is there such a thing as organic arsenic?” Again I digress.
I don’t drink wine. My wife likes a glass several times a week, but she’s not picky. So for years we have purchased 4-packs of small bottles of Sutter Home, mainly because they are single serving, my wife can’t finish a full bottle, and I’m no help.
Before I sat down to write, I went to the local supermarket. All these brands (thanks to the Georgia Patch for printing the full list) are still on the shelf. Now they ought to be as no one should be put out of business because someone sues them, especially in a society where anyone can sue anyone. I’m certainly no fan of lawyers but can one believe that companies would knowingly put out a toxic product? Well I believe it happens every day. And if it’s true I can tell you now I have no receipts to prove I bought so many of these bottles so I wonder how one who is “similarly situated” is identified. Do I get an arsenic test for my wife? What does that even mean? What are the ramifications?
I entitled this “Part 1” because I have no idea where this is going. I’m going to do some research and learn what I can about arsenic, soil, wine production, legal precedents and so on. For now my wife will need to find a new drink. And for my milk article haters I’ll write your predictable comment for you:
Comment: Yo Rob you (expletive deleted), did you serve your wife whole milk cheese with that poison wine? Why are you trying to kill your wife you (expletive deleted).
Sorry mom.
http://www.naturalnews.com/049095_California_wine_arsenic_science_hoax.html
Back to spa water and Xanax, I guess. (Beer makes you fat and I'm too shallow to rock a beer gut).
Seriously, thanks for the information, Rob and for posting the link to the entire list.
If there is no supporting data that suggests that there is arsenic poisoning in the wine drinking population, we can stop panicking and start looking at detailed analysis of the products, the toxicity levels of arsenic, how much is actually being ingested, etc. This would allow us to see if we are dealing with a big problem (widespread poisoning) or a small problem (questionable levels of arsenic).
I am not aware of an outbreak of arsenic poisoning, either acute or chronic, in the US, either recently or over a long period of time. That there is arsenic in groundwater is a fact of life, and 38% of wells in California were out of compliance with the 10 ppb. requirement (Alison Bohlen (2002) States move forward to meet new arsenic standard, Southwest Hydrology, May/June 2002, p.18-19.).
The current issue may well be one where arsenic is considered a carcinogen, or has other nasty affects on people. Again, it will have to be shown that this is a problem with the wine. Similarly, there are organic arsenate compounds, but these have a much lower acute toxicity than inorganic arsenites, which are more common in groundwater. But it is possible for the organic compounds to be converted to the inorganic forms in the body.
It is unlikely that the growers used arsenical pesticides, as these are not commonly used in the US. The most likely source of arsenic would be in the groundwater used for irrigating the vines. In this case, as the southwestern US has high levels of arsenic in the soil and so groundwater, it's something that is hard to avoid, but it's also something that most of the southwest has been living with for many years. And we aren't seeing people dropping like flies with arsenic poisoning in those areas.
To add to the panic, another study noted that rice grown in the US has an average arsenic content of 260 ppb., but US arsenic intake remains far below WHO recommended limits (WHO also recommend 10 ppb. for drinking water). (See: http://www.speciation.net/News/Surprisingly-high-concentrations-of-toxic-arsenic-species-found-in-US-rice-;~/2005/08/03/1561.html)
The FDA allows arsenic levels in fruit juice up to 50 ppb., because people drink far less juice than water. Time to panic about fruit juice!
As the study that suggested that the wine had high levels of arsenic was released only in 2015, it probably caught the wineries off-guard as well. It also appears to be from a private testing company, BeverageGrades, and was not 'scientific' in the sense of being peer-reviewed. "CBS This Morning" apparently tested some of the same wines and found much lower levels of arsenic than BeverageGrades did. A representative of the wine vendors pointed out that wine exported to Europe had to meet EU standards for things like arsenic, which are quite stringent, and there seems to be no problems.
It also seems that BeverageGrades sent a press release to some of the wine vendors named in the lawsuit to offer their services to provide a "screening and certification model that allows them to assure their customers of the purity of all the alcoholic beverages they sell."
There are several conclusions one can draw. One is how much people panic when there is plenty of data that suggests the opposite of what they are being told, i.e., a notable lack of people with arsenic poisoning, even among alcoholics. Another is re-inforcement of the all-too-obvious observation that fear is the emotion that drives much of what happens in the US, and people like BeverageGrades knows how the population will react to something like this (and the reaction doesn't include skepticism and fact-checking). One possible inference from all this hoo-haa might be linking the works "BeverageGrades" and "blackmail," and that the panic and publicity merely increases the changes that BeverageGrades will get bought off by the targeted wineries.
Nice to think that you may well be helping blackmailers succeed, Rob. I hope your mother approves.
P.S. Note the absence of profanity. Excuse the rather disjoint argument presented here, as I don't have time to spend making it pretty, when I suspect it will be ignored. Panic sells, skepticism doesn't.
Second, one of the plaintiffs, Jason Peltier, has had a career in water management as is currently Chief Deputy General Manager of the Westlands Water District in California. According to his bio, he "has spent the majority of his career as manager of California’s Central Valley Project Water Association, an organization representing the interests of the 80 water districts serving 3 million acres of irrigated farm land and 4 million households."
I would bet money that all the wineries in the suit have vineyards in the District, but pump their own groundwater, and he really just wants them to buy water from the District instead. What's the real backstory?
Sources:
https://irp-cdn.multiscreensite.com/f0533877/files/uploaded/Summons_Complaint.pdf
http://water.epa.gov/lawsregs/rulesregs/sdwa/arsenic/regulations_factsheet.cfm
http://www.westlandswater.org/wwd/orgchart.asp?title=Organization/Staff&cwide=1280
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