"Very high levels of arsenic" in top-selling wines

[n2doc]

Following recent warnings about the amount of arsenic in apple juice and rice, a proposed class action lawsuit is being filed Thursday in California that claims some of the country's top selling wines have high levels of the element: up to four and five times the maximum amount the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) allows for drinking water, reports CBS News correspondent Carter Evans.

After 15 years working in the wine distribution business, Kevin Hicks started BeverageGrades, a laboratory that analyzes wine. What he discovered shocked him.

"Some very, very high levels of arsenic," Hicks said.

He tested more than 1,300 bottles of wine. Almost a quarter of them had levels higher than the EPA's maximum allowable amount of arsenic in drinking water: 10 parts per billion. No one can say for sure why, but Hicks noticed a pattern.

"The lower the price of wine on a per-liter basis, the higher the amount of arsenic," he said.

more

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/lawsuit-claims-high-levels-arsenic-found-some-california-made-wines/?google_editors_picks=true

[Paper Roses]

1. Why is there no complete list of these wines made available?

Only the top 3 mentioned and no link available to see the others. What price constitute "lowest level"?

Ambiguous at best. More information would be nice.

[KoKo]

4. Here's the List:

http://www.taintedwine.com/test-results

[47of74]

6. Kind of surprised this wine wasn't on the list...

[hunter]

2. It's probably true, but Hick's business model stinks...

Ensure the quality of the ingredients in your brands. We test each lot rigorously using state-of-the-art lab testing methods and instrumentation.

Validate the quality of your brand and increase market share by promoting an A+ BeverageGrades Certification Rating to consumers.

http://www.beveragegrades.com

What a weasel.

[47of74]

3. Yep, better pass on that glass of Two Buck Chuck.

[Brother Buzz]

5. Just so the uninitiated understand, Two Buck Chuck is actually.....

Charles Shaw wine made by Bronco.

[Major Nikon]

7. Scaremongering nonsense

Using drinking water standards for wine is idiocy. If you're drinking so much wine that arsenic levels are too high, arsenic is going to be the least of your worries.

The FDA says juice given to babies that has 5 times the drinking water standard for arsenic is not a health concern for the average child.

For chronic exposure, using the consumption surrogate for MF 2 years of age and older, inorganic arsenic levels below 50 and 23 µg/kg in fruit juices would not pose a health concern for the mean and the 90th percentile juice consumers, respectively. These levels are in good agreement with the EPA drinking water and FDA bottled water standards of inorganic arsenic of 10 µg/L.

Even though arsenic concentrations are 5 and 2.3 times higher

, respectively, for average and 90th percentile consumers, juice consumption levels (221 and 449 ml/day, respectively) are correspondingly lower than drinking water intake (1-2L/day).

http://www.fda.gov/Food/FoodborneIllnessContaminants/Metals/ucm277676.htm

Coincident with the announcement of the lawsuit, this company offers it's testing services to retailers.
http://www.wineindustryadvisor.com/2015/03/19/beveragegrades-offers-arsenic-reassurance/

Kinda sounds like extortion.