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Last week, the Florida Health Department published a fairly large study, you can see it up on your screen, in which they found arsenic in 28 out of the 46 brands of candies that they tested. And these are not some off label candy brands you've never heard about before. These are actually the very same ones sold in your local supermarket. And probably they're the very same ones in your cupboard in your kitchen right now. Things like Laffy Taffy, Nerds, Gummy Clusters, Jolly Ranchers, things like that. And so in today's episode, let's go through the details of this study together, starting with two pieces of housekeeping. Firstly, please do smash those like and subscribe buttons so that this video can be picked up by the YouTube algorithm and share it to ever more people. Thank you for that. And secondly, a quick disclaimer. I myself was obviously not able to independently verify these test results myself. And so I'm just reporting to you what the Florida Health Department found in the course of their research. And along that line, I will also mention that the National Confectioners association, which is the trade group which actually represents US Candy makers. Once the study came out, they disputed the findings, calling them misguided. And then they added the following in their public statement, quote, chocolate and candy are safe to eat and can be enjoyed as streets as they had been for centuries. Florida has chosen sound bites over science and ignoring this science based program in favor of publishing unsourced materials that amount to little more than a scare tactic. Now we'll get back to their statement a bit later, but with that caveat out of the way, let me give you a bit of background here. In 2025, amidst the federal level Make America Healthy again agenda, the MAHA agenda forwarded by RFK Jr. The state of Florida launched something known as the Healthy Florida first initiative in the state's budget. Roughly $5 million was earmarked for this initiative in order to increase the testing of food products for things like heavy metals, bacteria, pesticides as well as microplastics. Now, the very first public release from this Florida initiative came earlier this year in early January when the state of Florida announced their findings in respect to baby formula. Here was in fact Governor Ron DeSantis on January 9th making the statement about the top line findings. Quote, the Florida Department of Health tested 24 infant formula products widely available in Florida and found elevated levels of heavy metals like mercury in 16, pointing to systemic problems in sourcing or manufacturing. Now, to be specific, the Florida State researchers, they found elevated levels of things like arsenic cadmium, lead as well as mercury in several well known baby formula brands available both in Florida as well as nationwide. And and by the way, just for your convenience, I will throw the results of that earlier finding. You can find it down in the description box below. There'll be a link there. Regardless though About a month after the baby formula study was published, the Florida State researchers published their second study, the one pertaining to candy. And here was how that study was generally conducted. Quote Candy was purchased online and from stores across the state and reportedly analyzed by a certified laboratory using EPA Method 6010D, a standardized metals testing method that measures total arsenic but does not distinguish between organic and inorganic forms, the latter of which is considered more toxic. And just for your reference, Arsenic can get into our food supply through mainly one of two ways. Either it can come in through environmental factors. Since arsenic can be found in both the soil as well as in groundwater, it can sometimes make it into the final food product on the shelf. And and then also besides the environmental factor, it can also come in through contamination through the actual process of making the food in a factory. Now, the study did not look at how the arsenic was getting in. They were only testing the amount of it in the final product on the store shelves. And also it's worth mentioning the general risk of arsenic, especially the risk of low level continuous exposure to arsenic. Quote Arsenic is a unique element with distinct physical characteristics and toxicity whose importance in public health is well recognized. The toxicity of arsenic varies across its different forms. While the carcinogenicity of arsenic has been confirmed, the mechanisms behind the diseases occurring after acute or chronic exposure to arsenic are not well understood. Inorganic arsenic has been confirmed as a human carcinogen that can induce skin, lung and bladder cancer. There are also reports of its significant association to liver, prostate and bladder cancer. Recent studies have also suggested a relationship with diabetes, neurological effects, cardiac disorders, and reproductive organs, but further studies are required to confirm these associations. The majority of research to date has examined cancer incidents after a high exposure to high concentrations of arsenic. However, numerous studies have reported various health effects caused by chronic exposure to low concentrations of arsenic, and I would imagine it would be that last part, the chronic exposure to low concentrations of arsenic which would apply in this case. Now, with all that as the general backdrop, the Florida Department of Health they bought those 46 different candy product brands, and those candy product brands were manufactured by 10 separate companies and of them, 28 were found to have elevated levels of arsenic. Here was Florida's first lady, Ms. Casey DeSantis, announcing the study's Findings in a press conference held down in Florida.
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You know, there's a reasonable expectation that our food supply, especially foods marketed to children, should not contain toxic chemicals. Through independent testing conducted by certified laboratories, the Florida Department of Health tested 46 different candy brands from 10 different companies. Of those, 33 were traditional, well known candies brands that we grew up with. Things like Three Musketeers and Snickers and Skittles and Nerds and Kit Kats and Jolly Ranchers. In 26 of the 33 traditional candy brands tested, our arsenic was detected at elevated levels.
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Now, if we go to the website that was set up by the Florida Department of Health to showcase their findings, we can see candy brands like Black Forest gummy bears with 370 parts per billion arsenic, laffy taffy banana with 480 nerds, gummy clusters with 500, Jolly Rancher hard candy sour apple with 540, KitKat bars with 230, Sour Patch Kids with 470, and so on. I will throw the links to to those findings. You'll be able to find them down in the description box below for your convenience. Now, right next to the Arsenic parts pavilion, there are two other columns. Those columns, they require just a bit of explaining. Basically, those Florida researchers, they looked at how much arsenic is safe for an adult to eat in a given year. And then they extrapolated the data for kids, accounting for the fact that kids are smaller and way less than adults. And so using those calculated values, the researchers found as just one example, the annual limit for the number of KitKat pieces that a child should consume, meaning I should mention, the max that they should consume in a given year is just a little over two pieces. Same thing for a three Musketeers bar, just a little over two pieces. Which really just shows you how shocking these numbers are, given the fact that in a single bag, you might have a upwards of five times the annual limit that these researchers set up. In fact, to that exact point. Here was Casey DeSantis speaking to Fox News about the disparity between the number of pieces in a bag compared to the annual limit that the researchers suggest. Take a listen.
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Yeah, so 20 and 40 times the amount of arsenic that we might find in other candies. Right. And so this is problematic. But here's the thing. When you look at it, the context and perspective is really important. And our surgeon General said it's not necessarily just one individual piece of candy, it's when you're eating. So let me give you a definition of what a lot is for nerds if you're consuming more than 96 nerds, that is more than what you should be consuming in a year as it pertains to arsenic consumption. So kids aren't eating just 96 Nerds. When you think about a box, a box typically has 2000 nerds in it or one of those big boxes that you might get at a movie theater that has 8,000 nerds. So 96, I mean, they're going to eat more than that. And then you look at arsenic in aggregate, so you look at Twix and another, you know, Milky Way or what have you, and it starts to add up and add up, and you're going well beyond what the Florida Department of Health would say is a safe level of arsenic. You know, for a year.
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Now, one obvious danger you might have after listening to all that is how realistic is this danger? I mean, we probably all ate a lot of candy growing up and probably very few of us got arsenic poisoning. That might be true. However, one of the guiding principles of the MAHA agenda, the Make America Healthy Again agenda, of which, again I should mention the Florida initiative, is just one component, is to look at the environmental factors overall to see what exactly is causing so many health problems for young Americans. It's to look at all the component parts and then consider how they add up together. And so, for instance, you get arsenic in the candy, you get cadmium in the baby formula, you get PFAS forever chemicals in the drinking water, you get microplastics in the disposable coffee cups. You get literally pounds, dozens of pounds of sugar from these soft drinks. And then seemingly all, all of a sudden, there's health problems popping up everywhere. And so the findings in regards to arsenic and candy is just one environmental factor of many. And as I mentioned at the very top of the episode, the trade organization representing the candy manufacturers believe that these Florida findings are exaggerated. Quote, the National Confectioners association criticized Florida for relying on benchmarks that do not align with current federal regulatory standards or peer reviewed science for confectionary products. The association also argued that calculating risk based on hypothetical annual consumption levels could create unnecessary alarm and confusion. The association pointed instead to the Food and Drug Administration's Closer to Zero initiative and the agency's newly released Total Diet Study interface, which it said shows significantly lower arsenic levels in confectionary products than those reported by Florida. However, to this criticism, Florida officials came out and they said that the Florida Health Department's testing is meant to add to rather than to replace federal food safety efforts and so there you have it. If you want to read the full study as well as the findings for each individual candy brand, I will throw a link to the results, both for the candy as well as the baby formula. You'll be able to find it down in the description box below. And I don't know, perhaps use that list to do your shopping. That would be my suggestion. But who knows? I'm just a guy making an episode on the Internet. So legally, I guess I have to say, don't, you know, you don't have to listen to me. So that's that. You can find that all down in the description box below. Smash those like and subscribe buttons. And then lastly, I'll also mention that we at the Epoch Times recently published a really good documentary regarding Charlie Kirk. It basically, it sort of acts as a memorial to Charlie Kirk, while at the same time tracing the quote unquote extremist label that was slapped on him by the media, as well as how it evolved over time, became a monster of its own, and eventually led to his assassination. It's a great documentary. Check it out. You can find it on the Epoch Times website. I'll also link it down in the description box below. It took us several months to put together post his death. It took traveling around the country as well as over to Europe to get those interviews. And it really is both a good memorial to him, a good sort of examination of his legacy, his effect on the country. But also it's a good examination of how that label and how the sort of, you know, the extremist labeling industry was mobilized to label him as an extremist, as a fascist, and so on. And how that label took on a life of its own until someone who's deranged took it too far and, you know, killed him in front of the world. So check it out. I'll throw that documentary link. It'll be down in the description box below. Just click on it and watch it. Hope you enjoy it. And then, until next time, I'm your host, Roman from the Epoch Times. Stay informed and most importantly, stay free.