Do you trust tap water?

Active chlorine in tap water is strong enough to kill cells of living organs

Chlorine

• deteriorates skin and accelerates aging.


• irritates skin and causes dryness and itching


• degrades protein in hair and causes hair-loss, discoloration and dandruff


• irritates eyes and respiratory organ.

"Taking showers is a health risk, according to research presented last week in a meeting of the American Chemical Society. Showers and to a lesser extent baths lead to a greater exposure to toxic chemicals contained in water supplies than does drinking water. The chemicals evaporate out of the water and are inhaled. They can also spread through the house and be inhaled by others."
New Scientist - 18 September 1986 , Ian Anderson

"The cause of atherosclerosis and resulting heart attacks and strokes is none other than the ubiquitous chlorine in our drinking water."
Coronaries / Cholesterol /Chlorine (Dr. J. M. Prece, M.D.)

"Skin absorption of contaminant has been underestimated and ingestion may not constitute the sole or even primary route of exposure."
American Journal of - Public Health (Dr. Halina Brown)

"Showering is suspected as the primary cause of elevated of chloroform in nearly every home because of the chlorine in the water."
Environmental Protection Agency (Dr.Lanec Wallace)

"A Professor of Water Chemistry at the University of Pittsburg claims that exposure to vaporized chemicals in the water supplies through showering, Bathing, and inhalation is 100 greater than through drinking the water."
The Nader Report, Troubled Waters on Tap (Center for Study of Responsive Law)

"The National Academy of Sciences estimate that 200 to 1000 people die in the United States each year from cancers caused by ingesting the contaminants in water. The major health threat posed by these pollutants is far more likely to be from their inhalation as air pollutants. The reason that immisions are high is because water droplets dispersed by the shower head have a larger surface-to-value ratio than water steaming into the bath."
Science News -Vol.130, (Janet Raloff)

"People who shower frequently could be exposed through ingestion, inhalation and / or dermal absorption. Volatile organics can evaporate from water in a shower or bath. Conservative calculations indicate that the inhalation exposures can be as significant as exposure from drinking; that is, one can be exposed to just as much by inhalation during a shower as by drinking 2 liters of water a day."
Is your Water Sate to Drind? (Consumer Reports Books)

"A long, hot shower can be dangerous. The toxic chemicals are inhaled in high concentrations."
Bottom Line - August 1987, Dr.John Andelman, Ph. D.

"Ironically, even the Chlorine widely used to disinfect water produces Carcinogenic traces. Studies indicate the suspect chemicals can also be inhaled and absorbed through the skin during showering and bathing."
U.S. News & World Report 29 July 1991
  Is Your Water Sate The Dangerous State of Your Water

ATLANTA (CNN) -- A byproduct of chlorination in drinking water has been linked to cancer in rats, leading the government to investigate adverse effects of water disinfectants.

A chemical byproduct called MX develops from organic compounds in the chlorinated drinking water, and Finnish researchers found that rats exposed to high levels of MX got several types of cancer.

VXtreme streaming video of Al Hinman report as seen on CNN

"The new study is showing that yet another one of the common byproducts of using chlorine in our drinking water appears to be linked to cancer," said Erik Olson of the National Resources Defense Council.

The researchers report their findings in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, to be published Wednesday.

"Although these findings cannot be extrapolated to humans, MX should be studied as a candidate risk factor" in the consumption of chlorinated drinking water, the study says.

Scientists in the National Toxicology Program, under the auspices of the National Institutes of Health, are launching a two-year study of MX and other chlorination byproducts. They want to see how MX -- at various low doses -- affects the occurrence of cancer in rats and mice.

MX a potent carcinogen in rats

In the Finnish study, government and university scientists fed groups of 50 rats three different dosages of MX in drinking water. The 50 rats in a fourth group received no MX and were maintained as a control.

At the end of two years, the rats were killed and their body tissues were analyzed.

Among rats receiving the highest doses of MX, more than half developed cancer or tumors of the thyroid, compared to about 22 percent in the control rats. The MX rats also developed cancer of the lungs, skin, breast, liver and pancreas.

"MX is a potent carcinogen in both male and female rats, and it causes tumors at doses that are not overtly toxic to rats," the Finnish researchers reported.

The cancer potency of MX is up to 170 times greater than some other chemical byproducts in chlorinated water, such as chloroform and bromodichloromethane, according to Dr. Ronald Melnick of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

However, he said the Finnish researchers used a dosage of MX thousands of times higher than what is present in the typical U.S. water system that is treated with chlorine. He estimated that MX at the doses studied in Finland would cause about two cancers per 1 million people over a lifetime.

Benefits of chlorine outweigh risks

Melnick said although MX should be studied, there should be no move to remove chlorination from public drinking water.

Chlorination controls many waterborne diseases, including typhoid fever, cholera and dysentery. When chlorination was stopped recently in Peru, for instance, there was a cholera epidemic of 300,000 cases.

More than 90 percent of drinking water in the United States is treated to remove harmful bacteria, and the benefits far outweigh the known cancer risks, scientists say.

But MX levels in U.S. drinking water are not usually monitored routinely, and Melnick said that is needed.

"We want our water to be as safe as possible, but in a chemical treatment such as this, it is impossible to have absolute zero risk," he said.

The presence of MX in drinking water may be controlled by filtering the water before the chlorine is added, Melnick said. Such filtering would remove the organic compounds that chlorine acts on to produce MX.

For those wishing to try to lessen any risk at home, experts say a good activated charcoal filter can trap some of the potential carcinogens in tap water.