Dr. Mehmet Oz, the celebrity doctor of the syndicated “The Dr. Oz Show” on television and coauthor of a daily newspaper column, stirs things up on TV with his findings on arsenic content found in mostly imported apple juice, observes Grumpy Editor.
After testing dozens of samples from three U.S. cities, Dr. Oz discovers some of the nation's best known brands of apple juice contain arsenic, a heavy metal known to cause cancer.
That brought immediate reaction from the Food and Drug Administration, disputing Dr. Oz’s findings --- and from ABC’s health and medical editor, Dr. Richard Besser.
An exchange of Dr. Besser, a former acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Dr. Oz on ABC’s “Good Morning America":
Besser: “ I’m very upset about this. I think this was extremely irresponsible, putting out this kind of health warning, manufacturing a health crisis based on faulty, incomplete data.”
Oz: “We did our homework. We spent a lot of time making sure we got our numbers right.”
Dr. Oz stresses most apple juice is not all-American, pointing out 60 percent of apple juice, made from concentrate, is imported from China.
Grumpy Editor, in efforts to determine the source of apple juice from concentrate distributed by Kroger Co., for example, finds one has to examine the container very carefully. The information is not on the wraparound label indicating nutrition facts and ingredients but is in tiny, easy-to-overlook print directly on the plastic container about an inch above the label.
Sure enough, it reads: “Contains concentrate from Argentina/China.”
Arsenic, banned in the U.S., is not always regulated in other countries where it may be in the water supply or used in pesticides contaminating the juice you're giving to your children, says Dr. Oz.
To settle the argument, rather than running a pros and cons story (and probably again in a few months), a major U.S. newspaper, magazine, wire service or TV outlet should independently test --- as a public service --- for arsenic content in apple juice and promote the results.
Meanwhile, see Dr.Oz’s findings and more information at:
www.doctoroz.com/videos/arsenic-apple-juice
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