Overview
The authors measured lead, cadmium, arsenic and mercury by ICP-MS in 150 broiler breast, liver, neck and kidney samples bought from live-chicken slaughter shops in five Tamil Nadu cities in 2017. Lead in breast and liver exceeded the cited 0.1 and 0.5 mg/kg limits in every city, and arsenic in breast was above 0.1 mg/kg everywhere except Madurai. Arsenic and mercury were not detected in neck or kidney.
Key numbers
- Breast lead: overall mean 1.2906 mg/kg (n = 78), range 0.5633 to 4.9577; Chennai mean 1.9626 ± 0.198 (n = 30) (Table 5).
- Breast arsenic: overall mean 0.5883 mg/kg; Trichy 2.2285 ± 0.387, Madurai 0.0239 ± 0.010 (Table 5).
- Breast mercury overall mean 0.2702 mg/kg; breast cadmium overall mean 0.0191 mg/kg (Table 5).
Methods (brief)
Thawed wet tissue (0.5 g) was microwave-digested in nitric acid and hydrogen peroxide and analyzed by ICP-MS in helium mode at an FDA-accredited laboratory. Detection limits were 0.18 to 0.95 ppb in solution. Unnamed reference materials recovered 89.6 to 94.5%. Means are reported with standard errors.
Evidence Fitness
A reasonably sized multi-city survey with ICP-MS and reported recoveries. Weaknesses: small liver groups (n = 3 in four cities), standard errors printed as 0.00 for cadmium, an unnamed reference material, and a liver arsenic overall mean (0.7781 mg/kg) that cannot be reconciled with the city means. Lead levels are high for chicken muscle. The journal running head abbreviates the first author as “M. M”; the cited surname is Mathaiyan. Raw broiler meat is a proxy for chicken-nuggets; no processed product was measured.