Brand name chicken products sold in American supermarkets and fast food restaurants are widely contaminated with arsenic, according to independent test results released today by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP). We tested 155 samples from uncooked supermarket products and found arsenic was more than twice as prevalent in conventional brands then found in certified organic or other "premium" brands. All fast food chicken products also contained arsenic.

Adding arsenic to chicken feed is a decades-old practice used for a few reasons including weight gain, to color the chicken meat, making the birds grow faster or trying to prevent disease when flocks numbering in the thousands are raised in close confinement indoors,