Drinking Water Dangers

When Americans get in up the morning one of the first things they do is drink a glass of water and eat their daily medications. For most people this means turning on the tap water and filling up a glass. This is something we take for granted because in many countries it is not possible to drink tap water without having to boil it first. However, a recent 10 year study from the EPA shows that while chlorine and chloramines may disinfect the water, the byproducts react with organic material in the water and generate different types of compounds. Some of these compounds have been shown to be toxic and can cause birth defects while others are genotoxic which means they can lead to DNA damage. It was discovered that water coming from sea beds contains high levels of iodine and bromine. While these waters are “disinfected” the iodine and bromine still can react with the organic materials creating disinfection-by-products (DBPs) above current EPA levels. The problem is that DBPs containing nitrogen are extremely genotocix and sometimes carcinogenic. Currently these types of DBPs are not regulated. The EPA currently only has data on 70 DBPs some of which are the least toxic. The database is being updated to include some of these more dangerous DBPs. More information is available at: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090331112725.htm