The Environmental Protection Agency, for example, has estimated the total national annualized cost of treatment, monitoring, reporting, record keeping, and administration to enforce the MCL rule to be approximately $181 million. Most of the cost is due to the installation and operation of the treatment technologies needed to reduce arsenic in public water systems. Pregnancy
Arsenic exposure through groundwater is highly concerning throughout the perinatal period. Pregnant women are a high-risk population because not only are the mothers at risk for adverse outcomes, but in-utero exposure also poses health risks to the infant. There is a dose-dependent relationship between maternal exposure to arsenic and infant mortality, meaning that infants born to women exposed to higher concentrations, or exposed for longer periods of time, have a higher mortality rate.Studies have shown that ingesting arsenic through groundwater during pregnancy poses dangers to the mother including, but not limited to abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea, skin pigmentation changes, and cancer. Research has also demonstrated that arsenic exposure also causes low birth weight, low birth size, infant mortality, and a variety of other outcomes in infants. Some of these effects, like lower birth-rate and size may be due to the effects of arsenic on maternal weight gain during pregnancy.
Estimates for children were similar. Food also contains many organic arsenic compounds. The key organic arsenic compounds that can be routinely found in food (depending on food type) include monomethylarsonic acid (MMAsV), dimethylarsinic acid (DMAsV), arsenobetaine, arsenocholine, arsenosugars, and arsenolipids. DMAsV or MMAsV can be found in various types of fin fish, crabs, and mollusks, but often at very low levels.Arsenobetaine is the major form of arsenic in marine animals, and, by all accounts, it is considered a compound that is nontoxic under conditions of human consumption. Arsenocholine, which is mainly found in shrimp, is chemically similar to arsenobetaine, and is considered to be "essentially nontoxic". Although arsenobetaine is little studied, available information indicates it is not mutagenic, immunotoxic, or embryotoxic.Arsenosugars and arsenolipids have recently been identified. Exposure to these compounds and toxicological implications are currently being studied. Arsenosugars are detected mainly in seaweed but are also found to a lesser extent in marine mollusks. Studies addressing arsenosugar toxicity, however, have largely been limited to in vitro studies, which show that arsenosugars are significantly less toxic than both inorganic arsenic and trivalent methylated arsenic metabolites.It has been found that rice is particularly susceptible to accumulation of arsenic from soil. Rice grown in the United States has an average 260 ppb of arsenic, according to a study; but U.S. arsenic intake remains far below World Health Organization-recommended limits. China has set a standard for arsenic limits in food (150 ppb), as levels in rice exceed those in water.Arsenic is a ubiquitous element present in American drinking water.