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Arsenic has long been recognized as a contaminant in drinking water, but now concerns are growing about worrisome levels of arsenic appearing in food, particularly apple juice. Several tests conducted by researchers at a university and at other labs have detected arsenic levels in various brands of apple juice that were from three to five times higher than the federal limit for this carcinogen in drinking water.

Researchers at the University of Arizona in 2009 found the toxin in apple juice at levels up to nearly triple the drinking water limit of 10 parts per billion (ppb), set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Similar levels were detected in two other sets of juice testing results reported in 2010 by the nonprofit environmental group Coming Alongside and by The St. Petersburg Times.

And an even higher level of 55 ppb was found this summer in an apple juice sample sent to a lab for testing by Empire State Consumer Project, a grassroots consumer group based in Rochester, N.Y., which has urged the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to set tolerance levels for heavy metals in apple products and to enhance the testing of imported food.

“These are very high levels and that’s quite concerning, especially for children who are likely to drink a fair amount of juice each day,” says Robert Wright, M.D., an associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School who specializes in research on the effect of heavy metals’ exposure on children. Wright says chronic exposure to even relatively low levels of arsenic can damage children’s brain development, in much the same way lead does, as we’ve described previously in Consumer Reports.