There are plenty of headlines about arsenic in rice due to a recent report, and while it may be something to consider long-term, it’s not an emergency.
Arsenic is a naturally occurring element found in soil and water, and rice is very good at absorbing it. While the levels in most rice are too low to cause acute illness, chronic exposure—even at low levels—has been linked to increased risks of cancer, heart disease, and developmental issues. Brown rice, long considered the healthier alternative, tends to have more arsenic than white rice because the outer layers, which are removed during processing of white rice, retain more of the chemical. This isn’t about foodborne illness or contamination—it’s just how rice grows. There’s no requirement to post warnings about arsenic in rice, but the FDA recommends limits on arsenic in infant rice cereal, and encourages people to eat a variety of grains.
For restaurants, this isn’t an immediate crisis or liability issue by any means, but if you have a health-conscious demographic, it could be worth thinking about. Some regions and farming practices produce rice with lower arsenic levels (California is lower than the Southwest, for example). Rinsing rice helps, and cooking it like pasta (in a lot of water and then draining it) can help reduce arsenic by up to 60%. For now, this issue isn’t likely to land you in the headlines—but as consumer awareness grows, some guests or staff may have questions, especially if you serve a lot of rice-based dishes or cater to health-conscious diners.
On Tuesday, FDA officials outlined their new approach to COVID vaccine approvals, which will effectively limit them to high-risk groups, including people over age 65 and anyone ages 6 months and up who have one or more risk factors for severe disease.
For everyone else, they’re requiring 6-month-long randomized controlled trials before recommending seasonal shots. Those will be costly, and may be hard to fill, since so many people have had vaccines and COVID infections in the recent past. Until then, insurance likely won’t cover shots for this group. That may not have that much of an impact, since booster uptake is relatively low in the U.S. right now. Ultimately, that might mean that manufacturers don’t see a financial incentive to run these studies required to get the recommendation.
Depending on your circumstances, you may still have access to COVID boosters. An estimated 100-200 million Americans have at least one of the risk factors. That’s anywhere between a third and half of the entire population.
We’ll be keeping a close eye on this, and don’t have any information yet about whether similar policies will be applied to the seasonal flu vaccine, which is usually updated yearly in a similar process.
Sources: STAT, MedPage Today, NEJM, Reuters
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