PONE-D-22-23969Quantitative analysis of heavy metals and trace elements in the edible body parts of the chicken and risk assessment of human health

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Syed Hafizur Rahman,

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: I Don't Know

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: 1.The title is too long

2. conclusion is not true according result of this study (this study demonstrated that

consumers are chronically exposed to elemental contamination with cancer-causing and noncarcinogenic

effects.) because (The calculated THQ

and total target hazard quotient (TTHQ) values were measured less than one, suggesting that the

consumption of chicken meat has no carcinogenic danger to its consumers) please re write this conclusion.

3. for improve the introduction section, please refer to the following related studies:

;https://doi.org/10.1080/03067319.2020.1743835.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2021.112002.

https://doi.org/10.1080/10807039.2018.1460798.

https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16214261

4. demonstrate novelty in the end paragraph part of introduction .

5.Where are these analyzes used and where are their results reported? A one-way analysis

of variance (ANOVA) test was used to get levels of heavy metal variations in the tested chicken

edible body parts that were statistically significant. The t-test was used to determine the statistically

significant differences between the heavy metals.

What’s the sampling strategy?

6. use this reference in method section :

Health risk assessment of heavy metals in cosmetic products sold in Iran: the Monte Carlo simulation.

Health risk assessment due to fluoride exposure from groundwater in rural areas of Agra, India: Monte Carlo simulation .

7.The conclusion should be rewritten. It is essential to rewrite the conclusion to summary primary results, primary viewpoint, shortcomings, academic contribution, and some suggestion.

Reviewer #2: The paper, Ref. No. PONE-D-22-23969, is basically very week in terms of several technical aspects. The authors have carried out a handsome amount of work but their presentation is very weak. There are several shortcomings in the paper as mentioned hereunder;

1. Some non-technical words such as dangerous heavy metals may be replaced by toxic heavy metals, cancer-causing by carcinogenic and so on.

2. Heavy metals have a specific weight greater than 5 g/cm3 and are naturally present in the Earth’s crust. Ref. is missing here insert (https://doi.org/10.1080/02772248.2017.1413652)

3. Ref. 3 for the sentence “Heavy metals linger in the environment for a long time because they are difficult to break down” is not appropriate, the correct reference could be https://doi.org/10.1155/2019/6730305

4. Check symbols of the metals being studied, throughout the text. Wrote their full name if you want, at their first mention, in the following text only symbols are enough.

5. Citation style in the text is not appropriate, please check throughout the entire text. For instance, “e.g., [2], [7], [9], [14], [15], [19], [26], [27], [29], [31], [32], [37]” references for one statement are too much. Although it is less than [59] Iwegbue et al. (2008) (0.013.22 mg.kg-1), the Pb concentration in chicken gizzards from the Rayer Bazar region was greater than those in chicken gizzards from any other location, check and rephrase; with the study of [37]; according to [38]; in [39]; in [36].

“obtained by [59] Iwegbue et al., (2008)(6.12-33.21 mg/kg), [55] Alturiqi & Albedair, (2012)(27.93-36.93 mg/kg), and [61] Rahman et al., (2014) (26.67±0.25-28.67±0.34 mg/kg).”

6. At various places the word “percent” must be replaced by %, check all other units according standard international protocol. per Sq. Km. is better to be replaced by km-2.

7. “Whatman filter paper (number 42) after the samples” check specification of the filter paper and represent in line with other reports.

8. Table 1, contains some columns which is mere repetition of the identical statements, omit these columns, column 5 and 7 needs to be deleted.

9. Table 2 is very short better to merge it in the text.

10. Some sentences are very short, such as “Lead is known to be a carcinogen”

11. Mostly the table is empty, what is need of such tables? Remove or modify only for valued data, Its removal is highly recommended

12. Reference position of Table 5 is appropriate not in Table 4.

13. Punctuations at several places are inappropriate such as “results of [47]. [14], but” and several other places.

14. Some numerical data is needed to be included in the conclusion.

15. Check references for uniform format and remove some irrelevant references like Ref. [3] does not fit to the statement.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: Ezzat Khan

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Human health risk assessment of edible body parts of chicken through heavy metals and trace elements quantitative analysis

PONE-D-22-23969R1

Dear Dr. syed Hafizur Rahman,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Kind regards,

Mathilde Body-Malapel

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: In my opinion, the authors have successfully clarified all the weaknesses of the article, and have managed to answer the questions proposed by the reviewers. Overall, I recommend this manuscript for publication.

Reviewer #2: Authors have addressed all comments and observations raised by this reviewer, to his entire satisfaction, still I advise the authors to read the manuscript carefully to eliminate some of the minor grammatical and technical errors. Reference 55, needs to be changed or replaced, include English version of the reference or replace it with another relevant. If authors are convinced and they understand the language of the paper then OK. Otherwise, it gives an impression that they read, summarized and cited the work. I do not have any major concern to decide against the manuscript.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: Ezzat Khan

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