The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Saturday recalled five brands of imported Armenian mineral water which allegedly contains excessive arsenic.

FDA officials said a bottled water has measured up to 674 times the permissible level of arsenic.

FDA said it sampled half-liter bottles of the various brands and discovered they exceeded by far the maximum allowable arsenic level of 10 micrograms per liter.

FDA found arsenic levels ranging between 454-674 micrograms per liter of arsenic in the Armenian water. The five brands are distributed by a company in Los Angeles.

Although the water contains up to 674 times the federal maximum levels of arsenic, the FDA said that it does not expect people to be killed by poison in their mineral water.

FDA officials said they are worried that long-term exposure to arsenic is a known cause of increased cancers among humans who consume non-lethal doses of the element.

The agency said persons suffering from arsenic poisoning would experience nausea, abdominal pain and vomiting before the arsenic level increased to fatal levels in their blood. No such illnesses have been reported yet, the FDA said.

"There is little chance that someone would become seriously ill after consuming the recalled products over a brief period of time ( days to weeks)," said a FDA statement.

The water is marketed under several labels, including:

-- "Jermuk Natural Mineral Water Fortified with Gas From The Spring";

-- "Jermuk 1951 Natural Mineral Water";

-- "Jermuk Sodium Calcium Bicarbonate and Sulphate Mineral Water "; and

-- "Jermuk, Natural Mineral Water Sparkling."

The suspect water has been bottled by several companies, including Kradjian Importing of Glendale, Importers Direct Wholesale Company of Los Angeles, Zetlian Bakery of Pico Rivera, and Arnaz & Nelli Inc. of North Hollywood.

The FDA said all of those brands are imported and distributed by Andreas Andreasen, the North Hollywood firm that first began recalling its own product last week.

Source: Xinhua