Arsenic is a chemical element with the symbol As and the atomic number 33. It is a metalloid and one of the pnictogens, and therefore shares many properties with its group 15 neighbors phosphorus and antimony. Arsenic is a notoriously toxic heavy metal. It occurs naturally in many minerals, usually in combination with sulfur and metals, but also as a pure elemental crystal. It has various allotropes, but only the grey form, which has a metallic appearance, is important to industry.
Arsanilic acid, also known as aminophenyl arsenic acid or aminophenyl arsonic acid, is an organoarsenic compound, an amino derivative of phenylarsonic acid whose amine group is in the 4-position. A crystalline powder introduced medically in the late 19th century as Atoxyl, its sodium salt was used by injection in the early 20th century as the first organic arsenical drug, but it was soon found prohibitively toxic for human use.
Carprofen is a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) of the carbazole and propionic acid class that was previously for use in humans and animals but is now only available to veterinarians for prescribing as a supportive treatment for various conditions in animals. Carprofen reduces inflammation by inhibition of COX-1 and COX-2; its specificity for COX-2 varies from species to species. Marketed under many brand names worldwide, carprofen is used as a treatment for inflammation and pain, including joint pain and postoperative pain.
Ethoxyquin (EMQ) is a quinoline-based antioxidant used as a food preservative in certain countries and originally to control scald on pears after harvest. It is used as a preservative in some pet foods to slow the development of rancidity of fats. Ethoxyquin is also used in some spices to prevent color loss due to oxidation of the natural carotenoid pigments.
Chicken is the most common type of poultry in the world. Owing to the relative ease and low cost of raising chickens—in comparison to mammals such as cattle or hogs—chicken meat and chicken eggs have become prevalent in numerous cuisines.
Dirlotapide is a drug used to treat obesity in dogs. It is manufactured by Pfizer and Zoetis and marketed under the brand name Slentrol.
In organic synthesis the Béchamp reaction is used for producing arsonic acids from activated aromatic substrates. The reaction is an electrophilic aromatic substitution, using arsenic acid as the electrophile. The reaction proceeds according to this idealized stoichiometry for the preparation of arsanilic acid:
This timeline of the 2007 pet food recalls documents how events related to the 2007 pet food recalls unfolded. Several contaminated Chinese vegetable proteins were used by pet food makers in North America, Europe and South Africa, leading to kidney failure in animals fed the contaminated food. Both the centralization of the pet food industry and the speed and manner of the industry and government response became the subjects of critical discussion.
In China, the adulteration and contamination of several food and feed ingredients with inexpensive melamine and other compounds, such as cyanuric acid, ammeline and ammelide, are common practice. These adulterants can be used to inflate the apparent protein content of products, so that inexpensive ingredients can pass for more expensive, concentrated proteins. Melamine by itself has not been thought to be very toxic to animals or humans except possibly in very high concentrations, but the combination of melamine and cyanuric acid has been implicated in kidney failure. Reports that cyanuric acid may be an independently and potentially widely used adulterant in China have heightened concerns for both animal and human health.
Poultry farming is the form of animal husbandry which raises domesticated birds such as chickens, ducks, turkeys and geese to produce meat or eggs for food. Poultry – mostly chickens – are farmed in great numbers. More than 60 billion chickens are killed for consumption annually. Chickens raised for eggs are known as layers, while chickens raised for meat are called broilers.
Feather meal or Feather powder, is a byproduct of processing poultry; it is made from poultry feathers by partially grinding them under elevated heat and pressure, and then grinding and drying. Although total nitrogen levels are fairly high, the bioavailability of this nitrogen may be low. Feather meal is used in formulated animal feed and in organic fertilizer.
Carbarsone is an organoarsenic compound used as an antiprotozoal drug for treatment of amebiasis and other infections. It was available for amebiasis in the United States as late as 1991. Thereafter, it remained available as a turkey feed additive for increasing weight gain and controlling histomoniasis.
Animal digest is a common ingredient used in pet foods. As defined by the Association of American Feed Control Officials, digest is produced by the chemical or enzymatic hydrolysis of clean animal tissue that has not undergone decomposition. These animal tissues may not include hair, horns, teeth, hooves, or feathers, with the exclusion of trace amounts that are unavoidable even after acceptable processing methods.
Adulteration is a legal offense and when the food fails to meet the legal standards set by the government, it is said to have been Adulterated Food. One form of adulteration is the addition of another substance to a food item in order to increase the quantity of the food item in raw form or prepared form, which results in the loss of the actual quality of the food item. These substances may be either available food items or non-food items. Among meat and meat products some of the items used to adulterate are water or ice, carcasses, or carcasses of animals other than the animal meant to be consumed. In the case of seafood, adulteration may refer to species substitution (mislabeling), which replaces the species identified on the product label with another species, or undisclosed processing methods, in which treatments such as additives, excessive glazing, or short-weighting are not disclosed to the consumer.
A feed additive is an additive of extra nutrient or drug for livestock. Such additives include vitamins, amino acids, fatty acids, minerals, pharmaceutical, fungal products and steroidal compounds. The additives might impact feed presentation, hygiene, digestibility, or effect on intestinal health.
Histomoniasis is a commercially significant disease of poultry, particularly of chickens and turkeys, due to parasitic infection of a protozoan, Histomonas meleagridis. The protozoan is transmitted to the bird by the nematode parasite Heterakis gallinarum. H. meleagridis resides within the eggs of H. gallinarum, so birds ingest the parasites along with contaminated soil or food. Earthworms can also act as a paratenic host.
Selenium yeast is a feed additive for livestock, used to increase the selenium content in their fodder. It is a form of selenium currently approved for human consumption in the EU and Britain. Inorganic forms of selenium are used in feeds. Since these products can be patented, producers can demand premium prices. It is produced by fermenting Saccharomyces cerevisiae in a selenium-rich media.
Nitarsone is an organoarsenic compound that is used in poultry production as a feed additive to increase weight gain, improve feed efficiency, and prevent histomoniasis. It is marketed as Histostat by Zoetis.
Arsonic acids are a subset of organoarsenic compounds defined as oxyacids where a pentavalent arsenic atom is bonded to two hydroxyl groups, a third oxygen atom, and an organic substituent. The salts/conjugate bases of arsonic acids are called arsonates. Like all arsenic-containing compounds, arsonic acids are toxic and carcinogenic to humans.
Antibiotic use in the United States poultry farming industry is the controversial prophylactic use of antibiotics in the country's poultry farming industry. It differs from the common practice in Europe, where antibiotics for growth promotion were disallowed in the 1950s.
