A story about arsenic-laced wine is panicking a lot of people. It’s all about a lawsuit brought against the producers of some wines claiming they contain unsafe amounts of arsenic. As far as I can tell, the lawsuit is an attempt at money grab by a company that performs analyses for substances such as arsenic in beverages. The idea seems to be to cash in on the public fear generated by the lawsuit. People will clamor for the testing of wines, a service the company provides. Any story about arsenic, the fabled "widow maker," is guaranteed to trigger publicity. Witness Dr. Oz's shows on arsenic in apple juice and wine.
According to the lawsuit, some cheaper wines contain up to five times as much arsenic as is allowed in tap water, which is 10 ppb. Anything that grows in soil will have some arsenic because arsenic compounds occur naturally. The 10 ppb limit in water has a large safety factor built in, but more importantly, people do not drink as much wine as water. And if they do, they need to worry about the alcohol content far more than about the arsenic content.
