Dr. Oz Finds Arsenic in Apple Juice. Will Scandal Poison his Reputation?

Photo credit: Ove Tøpfer

Dr. Mehmet Oz, FOX TV’s phenomenally popular medical expert, may have just sunk his career. On Wednesday, Oz announced that a New Jersey lab found troubling levels of arsenic in apple juice. His announcement caused panic in his viewers and an immediate backlash from other medical experts and by the FDA.

The FDA released a statement that read:

“There is no evidence of any public health risk from drinking these juices. And FDA has been testing them for years.”

Why, then, did that New Jersey lab find such high traces of arsenic in the different brands of apple juice that they had tested?

Well, the FDA explained that there are two forms of arsenic—organic and inorganic. Organic arsenic will not hurt you. The inorganic arsenic, the type found in rat poison and pesticides—is deadly if you are exposed to too much over a long period of time. Apparently, we are exposed to both types every day. Traces of arsenic are present in our water, our air, our soil—and in our food.  (This, by the way, is totally shocking to me).

The FDA says that Dr. Oz and the New Jersey lab failed to break down the types of arsenic found in the brands of apple juice it tested. Consequently, the results were “misleading.”

So I guess it’s okay to give your children apple juice to drink. After all, they’re only drinking the good kind of arsenic. Right?