Reply to "Is chromium scare scientific?”

I would like to reply to the comments of Professor M Lutfor Rahman, Department of Environmental Science, Independent University, on my research work published in your column on August 02, 2014.

Of the different types of poultry feeds available in the market, some are prepared with expensive, imported protein sources. Others are prepared using 20-25% of deshi meat bone (DMB). The DMB is prepared from tanned skin-cut wastes (SCW) and leather shaving dust (LSD) available in Hazaribag area. Different poultry farms of the country use these feeds. The objective of our research was to find out the transport of chromium from tannery wastes to chicken through poultry feeds. For this purpose, non-DMB and DMB poultry feeds were collected from market and both were analyzed for chromium. The first one contained no chromium (below detection limit of 1 mg/kg using Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy), while DMB contained 8210 mg/kg of total chromium. So our aim was to find out the transport of chromium in the chicken which are fed a DMB mixed feed. As it is available in the market, about 20% of DMB was mixed with other feeds to prepare DMB mixed poultry feed and this was fed to 30 days old chicken. The different body parts of these chickens were analyzed for total chromium after feeding first month (1st batch) to second month (2nd batch).

Acceptable limit

In 1980, WHO and Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), recommended the range for trivalent chromium 50 to 200 microgram per day for adults as the "safe and adequate daily dietary intake" but in 2001, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) recommended the Adequate Intakes (AI) of chromium for different ages at 2 to 35 microgram per day.  

Is separate analysis necessary?

In our finding, after two months of feeding the chickens with DMB mixed poultry feed, the total chromium in brain, meat, liver and bone of chicken are 4561, 349, 611 and 1990 microgram/kg, respectively. Now, I ask Professor M Lutfor Rahman, under these circumstances is it necessary to analyze hexavalent chromium and trivalent chromium separately to evaluate its toxicity?

Our proposal is to stop the production of DMB from tannery solid wastes (skin-cut wastes or leather shaving dust) and stop mixing it with other ingredients to produce poultry feeds.

I request Professor M Lutfor Rahman to go through my article published as the BEST PAPER in the International Journal of Civil, Structural, Environmental and Infrastructure Engineering Research and Development (IJCSEIERD), Vol. 4, Issue 4, page 1-10, 2014 (Trans Stellar: TJPRC Pvt. Ltd.; ISSN (P): 2249-6866; ISSN (E): 2249-7978; USA, UK, Singapore, Qatar and India).

Professor Dr. Mohammad Abul Hossain
Department of Chemistry
University of Dhaka