Poultry companies added dangerous arsenic to chicken feed, but they never warned poultry growers, people who spread chicken litter or children at schools, an attorney told jurors Friday.
Fayetteville attorney Jason Hatfield said that the bags containing the arsenic-laced feed additives contain danger warnings, but poultry companies chose not to pass it along.
"Only the companies knew the dangers," said Hatfield, who represents a Prairie Grove man suing Tyson Foods, George's Farms, Peterson Farms and Simmons Foods in Washington County Circuit Court.
The lawsuit filed in 2003 by the parents of Michael "Blu" Green, who was diagnosed with leukemia in 1999, alleges poultry producers used chicken feed with Roxarsone, a feed additive that includes arsenic, which led to cancer-causing litter.
Attorneys for the poultry companies argued that Roxarsone has been safely mixed with feed for 50 years to help keep chickens healthy and is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. They claim that the testimony of world-class scientists will show that the plaintiff's case is based on faulty science.
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Trial in NW Arkansas Exposes Poultry Industry's Practice of Mixing Arsenic into Chicken Feed & Fertilizer
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Attorneys argue arsenic in second poultry litter trial
By Scott F. Davis
Northwest Arkansas Times, May 2, 2009
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