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Tap Water
The main problems with tap water are:
Chlorine
Fluoride
Other contaminants (PCBs, THMs, heavy metals)
Let's examine the fluoride problem first:
In 1973, British Columbia was considering mandatory fluoridation. They gave the job of researching and reporting the topic to Richard Foulkes, MD. Foulkes then wrote a 1900 page report and he recommended that legislation be passed to make fluoride mandatory in Canada. Based on that work, Canada began to fluoridate.
Then something happened. Little by little, Foulkes found out that the statistics that his researchers had based their findings on were largely falsified. It took Foulkes several years to uncover the truth, but by 1992, he shocked the country by backing down from his original recommendation:
"I now hold a different view. ¡Kthe fluoridation of community water supplies can no longer be held to be either safe or effective in the reduction of dental cavities¡K.Therefore, the practice should be abandoned."- Foulkes, 1992
Foulkes is not some tree-hugger from Santa Cruz. He is one of Canada's top scientific researchers. Many cities in Canada listened and stopped fluoridating. Want to read a first-hand story about lies and greed and disregard for human health and crooked deals between government and industry? Read Dr. Foulkes stuff.
Another pro-fluoride Canadian scientist, Dr. Hardy Limeback, changed his tune when he learned that 30-60% of Canadian children now have visible signs of overexposure to fluoride, something called "dental fluorosis". In a Toronto Star interview with Michael Downey, Limeback said: "Children under three should never use fluoridated toothpaste. Or drink fluoridated water."
Such research also prompted the Canadian Dental Association in 1992 to keep fluoride supplements from children of three and under. But attacking fluoride supplement pills is just a smokescreen to protect fluoridation of drinking water.
Most research has found all the above ill effects at concentrations even less than the standard 1 PPM which exists in most city water. It's not the supplements that are killing us; it's the fluoridated water.
Fluoridation in Other Countries
If fluoridation is as safe and effective as the American Dental Association says it is, why don't other countries do it?
The U.S. is nowhere near the top of any health list which compares other countries of the world. So what are the healthy countries doing?
If fluoride is so great, why have the following countries either never fluoridated or else stopped when they found out how bad it was:
West Germany Finland Japan
The Netherlands Sweden Italy
France Norway Scotland
Belgium Denmark
Only about 2% of the population of Europe is subjected to fluoridated water.
Other contaminants in tap water
Chlorine:
The experimental use of chlorine began in the 1890's to combat water-borne diseases such as cholera and typhoid. It quickly gained wide acceptance because of low cost and high efficiency in killing just about everything hazardous in the water. Chlorine allowed population centers to spring up and thrive without any epidemic outbreaks.
The problem with chlorine is that it is a known poison and the safety of drinking this poison over the long-term (i.e. your lifetime) is highly uncertain. Also, chlorine reacts with water-borne decaying organic matter like leaves, bark, sediment, etc. to create a family of chemicals called trihalomethanes and other highly toxic substances. Trihalomethanes, or THM's, include chemicals such as chloroform, bromoform and dichlorobromethane, all of which are extremely carcinogenic even in minute amounts.
Chloramine:
Chloramine is another substance used now in many larger municipalities (i.e. Los Angeles). In systems where the level of chlorine is at the highest acceptable level but needs still more disinfection, the utility will then add a chlorine/ammonia compound. Chloramine is represented as totally safe but with the disclaimer to not give chloramine-treated water to your animals or use it in your fish tanks (it kills fish)!
Bacteria:
If you are on a municipal system with chlorination or chloramine, theoretically you are protected against bacteria. However, if the level of chlorination isn't high enough from the municipal source to your tap, bacteria can re-infect the water anywhere along the distribution system. The piping system -- whether it's the mains or your house plumbing -- has bacterial growth in it happening all the time.
If you are on a spring or a well, with no chlorine, then you are very vulnerable to bacterial contamination. Even the most pure sources cannot prevent occasional contamination from animals either dying or defecating in the source, or from neighboring pollution (i.e. septic tanks) traveling from an adjoining watershed to contaminate the source. Also, the pipes are again a source of bacteria.
Many people do periodic testing on their well or spring source and rely on this method to assure themselves that they have good water. What they don't realize is that there are a few problems with testing.
First, the test is only good for the moment the sample was taken. Bacteria can have "blooms," if the conditions are right, which potentially occur hours, days or weeks after the testing and therefore remain undetected. Other casual contamination can occur from animal or human sources, as mentioned above, which the test never detected because the sample was taken before the contamination occurred.
Second, testing can be very expensive to do, depending on what is being tested for. Most basic tests cover bacteria (i.e. E. coli), levels of sediment and decaying organic matter, and amount of total dissolved solids (mineral levels such as calcium, magnesium, iron, sulfur, etc.). With any extra testing the price goes up per test. Lead, asbestos and specific chemical contaminants are more difficult and therefore much more expensive to test for.
Lead:
Lead is a cumulative toxin that stays in the tissue permanently, especially in brain tissue. It also affects a person in relation to their body weight. Therefore, an exposed adult can fend off the toxic effects for some time but in children, brain and developmental damage occur quickly and permanently.
Lead pipes and lead solder in the distribution system are the main sources of lead pollution. Boston Globe estimates that 98% of all households have lead in their plumbing. Houses older than 20 years and less than five years are most at risk. Also, houses in areas of soft (low mineral levels) water tend to corrode the lead from the pipes more easily.
Asbestos:
Asbestos is another potential carcinogen that can come either from water with naturally occurring asbestos (such as in areas that have a lot of serpentine rock) or from asbestos-lined water pipes. Thousands of miles of these pipes were laid throughout the U.S. in the 1950's and have yet to be replaced.
Asbestos is so small that it is unfeasible to remove it at the water treatment plant. To build such a removal facility is prohibitively expensive and would clog up the plant within five years of being in operation.
Chemical Pollution:
Chemicals are, for the most part, odorless, colorless and tasteless, therefore undetectable. Chlorine is the most predominant chemical in our water. Some of the most dangerous chemicals are present only in trace amounts (parts per billion) but highly toxic even at these minute levels. Sources are usually industrial or commercial, like leaking underground storage tanks for gasoline or industrial solvents such as TCE (trichloroethane).
These leaking toxins end up in the groundwater or in the municipal supply through breaks or cracks in the main water pipes. The biggest family of these toxins is VOC's or volatile organic contaminants, including various plastics, gasoline and petroleum products. Next is the herbicidal group such as dioxin (2-4D) and lindane, used as a defoliant in modern logging operation and found in many wild and rural areas.
Along with the herbicides comes the pesticidal group such as DDT, malathione and other toxics used in insect eradication and control. Also, the THM's mentioned before are a big pollutant because of the amount of chlorination used nationwide. They are a separate class of chemical from chlorine itself.
Cysts:
This last group includes microscopic worms, parasites and protozoa. The biggest offenders are giardia and cryptosporidia which cause major diarrhea, dehydration, intestinal disorders and even death in people with compromised immune systems. Water experts estimate that over 63% of water problems in the Unites States today are directly caused by giardia and cryptosporidia.
Giardia is seven to fourteen microns in size and cryptosporidium is from three to five microns in size. (When the environment becomes inhospitable (like the presence of chlorine or the absence of water), both parasites can go into the cystic form (like a hard, round impermeable microscopic egg). The cyst form is chlorine resistant and very hard to kill.
Municipal utilities are unable to completely remove these cysts. Cysts have been found in most major municipal water systems in the U.S. Milwaukee, Wisconsin had a huge outbreak of cryptosporidia in 1993 that killed over 100 people. San Francisco, California has repeatedly tested positive for giardia in its chlorinated water that traveled hundreds of miles from the Sierras.
The human body is over 70% water. To think that contaminants in our drinking water have little or no bearing on our short term and long term health picture is to ignore reality. Federal, state and local authorities will strive to do their best to insure that we get the best water possible but they can't undo all of the damage to our water sources over decades of ignorance and abuse.
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