Connect with Us:

The Power of Information

Facebook Page Twitter @enviroblog Youtube Channel Our RSS Feeds

At EWG,
our team of scientists, engineers, policy experts, lawyers and computer programmers pores over government data, legal documents, scientific studies and our own laboratory tests to expose threats to your health and the environment, and to find solutions. Our research brings to light unsettling facts that you have a right to know.

Privacy Policy
(Updated Sept. 19, 2011)
Terms & Conditions
Reprint Permission Information

Charity Navigator 4 Star

sign up
Optional Member Code

support ewg

arsenic

In the chemical families: Arsenic compounds, Metals

Test

EWG Research on arsenic


Related News Clips on arsenic


Health Effects related to arsenic: Birth or developmental effects, Cancer, Endocrine system, Organ system toxicity (non-reproductive), Reproduction and fertility

Routes of Exposure related to arsenic:

  • Consumer products: decks, playground equipment
  • Environment: agriculture
  • Food: chicken, rice
  • Found in people
  • Water: tap water

More chemicals in Arsenic compounds: view all...

More chemicals in Metals: Uranium, chromium hydroxide, thimerosal, chromium oxide, bismuth, zirconium oxide, chromium oxide greens, chromium hydroxide green, titanium dioxide, iron, view all...

More Information

Arsenic powder has been the poisoner's choice since Nero's day. Yet chemists through the ages have formulated less toxic arsenic compounds into artist's colors and dyes, glass, alloys of lead, copper and brass, pesticides, cosmetics, tonics and even medicines.

In 1980, the National Toxicology Program's first Report on Carcinogens listed inorganic arsenic compounds as known human carcinogens. Inorganic arsenic-based pesticides were banned in the years that followed. By 1985, the U.S. had stopped producing arsenic.

Still, America remained the world's leading arsenic consumer, with imports soaring from 14,200 metric tons in 1985 to 25,000 tons by 2001, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. By 2009, imports were 6575 metric tons.

Some 86 to 90 percent of imports were being made into chromated copper arsenate (CCA), a wood preservative for "pressure-treated" decking, landscaping, walkways, picnic tables and playground equipment. The rest went into semiconductors, specialized metal, a few remaining pesticides and treatments for acute leukemia and other cancers.

In 2001, the Environmental Working Group launched its Poisoned Playgrounds initiative to build support for a ban on arsenic in all consumer products. An EWG analysis entitled The Poisonwood Rivals found that pressure treated wood sold by The Home Depot and Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse leached about 100 times the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's 10 microgram "allowable daily exposure level" for drinking water -- onto a moistened wipe the size of a four-year-old's hand.

The next year, under pressure by consumers, members of Congress and the EPA, the wood industry agreed to stop using arsenic-based wood preservatives as of December 2003. Organic arsenic herbicides are still in use on cotton and turf, including golf courses, lawns, school yards, athletic fields, and rights-of-way.