Written by Joseph G. Hattersley, May 1999

Part 2 of 2 (Previous)

Other Harm from Chlorination

A study in the late 1970s found that chlorinated water appears to increase the risk of gastrointestinal cancer over a person's lifetime by 50 to 100 percent. This study analyzed thousands of cancer deaths in North Carolina, Illinois, Wisconsin and Louisiana. Risk of such cancers results from use of water containing chlorine at or below the E.P.A. (Environmental Protection Agency) standard and "is going to make the E.P.A. standard look ridiculous," stated Dr. Robert Harris, lead scientist in the study.

Later, a meta-analysis found chlorinated water is associated each year in America with about 4,200 cases of bladder cancer and 6,500 cases of rectal cancer. Chlorine is estimated to account for 9 percent of bladder cancer cases and 18% of rectal cancers. Those cancers develop because the bladder and rectum store waste products for periods of time. (Keeping the bowels moving regularly will minimize such risk.)

Chlorinated water is also associated with higher total risk of combined cancers. Chlorine in treated water can cause allergic symptoms ranging from skin rash to intestinal symptoms to arthritis, headaches, and on and on.

Why does chlorine in water cause these problems? It destroys protective acidophilus, which nourishes and cooperates with the immunity-strengthening "friendly" organisms lining the colon. And, as mentioned earlier, chlorine combines with organic impurities in the water to make trihalomethanes (THMs), or chloramines. The more organic matter, the more THMs; and like excess oxysterols they are carcinogens.

Recent research has found a new hazard in chlorinated water: a byproduct called MX. A research team from the National Public Health Institute in Finland discovered that, by causing genetic mutations, MX initiates cancer in laboratory animals. And DCA (dichloro acedic acid) in chlorinated water alters cholesterol metabolism, changing HDL ("good") to LDL ("bad") cholesterol -- and causes liver cancer in laboratory animals.

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Sidebar: Dr. David Williams warns of potentially disastrous water pollution at the start of year 2000. American deaths and illnesses caused by drinking water are already over one million a year (some estimate seven times that many) and increasing exponentially. Such deaths are estimated at 9,000 every year, illnesses in the millions; and both bunch up during temporary breakdowns of water-system regulation.

The computers that control thousands of water systems are not being prepared. And so, when double zero is entered for the year 2000, computers could go berserk and cause multiple malfunctions countrywide. He warns this could cause a major disaster.

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Is there a better substitute for chlorine in water treatment: Yes. Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) destroys infectious organisms and impurities in water 4,000 times better than chlorine. Ozone (O3) treatment, mentioned on earlier, is equally effective. Eleven hundred cities, worldwide, treat their drinking water with ozone; many have done so since as early as 1901. (Los Angeles treats its drinking water with H2O2, then adds chlorine. Some chlorine may be added after ozonation, to prevent re-infestation; only about one-third as much is needed.)

To generate ozone, dry air or oxygen is passed through a high-voltage electrical field. Ozone drinking-water treatment in Andover, Massachusetts successfully controlled the effects of algae blooms and eliminated water quality problems. Potential THM formation was reduced by an average of 75 percent.

But H2O2 and O3 are relatively cheap; moreover, the only byproducts are pure oxygen and hydrogen, so no one can make a big immediate profit on them. (Hydrogen is a potential major energy source for electricity generation and for zero-emission vehicles, and so it could be important in future years.) France and Germany, wiser and less controlled by the chemical industry, chlorinate water only in emergencies.

The chemical companies pulled off a huge coup when they bamboozled America and Canada into chlorination. They make big profits disposing of excess chlorine into our drinking water; otherwise, they would have to pay to destroy it. So now we know why American water isn't treated with safe, cheaper, more effective ozone. And now we know why Dr. Price's revealing studies with cockerels were never followed up.

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Sidebar: Drinking and swimming in chlorinated water can cause malignant melanoma. Sodium hypochlorite, used in chlorination of water for swimming pools, is mutagenic in the Ames test and other mutagenicity tests. Redheads and blonds are disproportionately melanoma-prone; their skin contains a relative excess of pheomelanins compared to darker people.

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Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) tests have shown that "in the water we drink, over 2,100 organic and inorganic chemicals [including pesticides, heavy metals, radon, radioactive particles] and parasitic organisms including cryptosporidium have been identified; 156 of them are pure carcinogens. (In 1993, cryptosporidium killed more than 100 and infected over 400,000.)

Of those, 26 are tumor promoting [they can make an existing tumor grow]. Exposure to cryptosporidium in people with lowered gastrointestinal immune function could lead to chronic GI infection. Other examples include recurring cases of Legionnaire's disease, a pneumonia caused by Legionella pneumophila, which may lurk in hot water supplies.

A public notice recently issued in Washington, D.C. warned that a high level of bacteria in the [chlorinated, fluoridated city system] water made it unsafe for dialysis patients, AIDS patients, organ transplant patients, the elderly and infants. Water contamination is the worst in small communities that can't afford proper treatment; the EPA has not released this information.

And hearings before the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight discussed Pfiesteria outbreaks among people drinking chlorinated water. The organism, which kills fish, sickens some people; they get sick from drinking the water, not from eating infected seafood. The EPA's Robert Perciasepe said, in written testimony, that "Any new public health policy on this issue needs to consider reduction of nitrogen and phosphorus pollution in our waters."

A bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives would require managers of municipal water systems to tell customers what contaminants have been found in local drinking water. But with present crude test methods, that would offer little help.

Sherry Rogers, MD, pioneer in and authority on environmental medicine (EM), raises the number of chemicals in drinking water to 5,000. And 85 percent of American aquifers supplying wells below 8,000 feet altitude are contaminated with heavy metals; a recent federal report says the water you drink may have been recycled from sewage waste back to drinking water five times. As the late Kevin Treacy, MD of Australia said, "If municipal water were introduced now, it would not be allowed."

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Sidebar: Plants do not thrive as well on chlorinated as on unchlorinated water; wild animals do not develop atherosclerosis until they drink chlorinated water in American zoos. Although their food, selected by people, isn't the same as what they caught, plucked or dug up in the wilds, evidence suggests chlorinated water, together with its thousands of other chemicals, is the worst culprit in their arterial clogging.

Scientists in Minnesota grew embryos from healthy frogs in plain tap water. Some of the frogs had no legs or six legs' or an eye in the middle of the throat. Earlier, deformed frogs were found in the U.S., Canada and Japan. And we are drinking that stuff!

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The EPA called 129 of the contaminants found in water supplies "dangerous" singly, let alone in combination. Pesticides and other toxic wastes run off farmlands and pastures or are dumped by factories, pollute rivers and seep into underground aquifers. Aptly called "biocides" by Russell Jaffe, MD, PhD, pesticides are designed to end life; few have been shown to be safe. The EPA depends on producers of pesticides to test their safety: the wolf guards the hen house. It should be no surprise that the tests take a long time, and many have been fraudulent.

Further, one poison is tested at a time; synergistic effects of combinations, potentially far worse, are ignored. Besides, many of the so-called "inert" substances in pesticide combinations are more toxic than the "active;" one of the "inerts" is DDT, prohibited for American farm use since 1973.

Are these contaminants dangerous in such minute quantities? Yes! In a laboratory, healthy living cells weakened, malfunctioned and some died within seconds or minutes when exposed to toxins commonly detected in American drinking water such as mercury, nickel, cadmium and lead at the extremely low concentration of only one part per billion (ppb).

Isn't all that bad enough without the deliberate addition of the further toxicity of chlorine?

Protection of water: Government laboratories test only for bacterial content and a few of the major inorganic toxins such as lead and arsenic. So, to get a complete water test one must consult a private laboratory.

Consumer Reports, in October 1999, rated the simpler Culligan filter, which easily attaches to a kitchen faucet, very high; and it is relatively inexpensive (about $14 at Walgreens).

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Addendum: Low-level radiation is healthful, not harmful as is generally assumed. Low-Dose Irradiation and Biological Defense Mechanisms. By T Sugahara, L. Sagan, T. Aoyama. NY: Excerpta Medica, 1992. ISBN# 0-444-89409-8.

Higher levels of radon radiation in homes yield lower lung cancer and also less of other cancers, better immune systems and longer life. There is a correlation between lung cancer and radon exposure; but the correlation is negative. And "p" is well under .00l. That means, the probability the result could have happened by chance is less than one in one thousand. All this was learned from study of 1,720 U.S. counties that include 90 percent of US population.

The EPA policy of requiring reduction of radon in homes derives from the "linear hypothesis." Extremely high radiation yields extreme damage, and less-high radiation, less severe damage. So they extend the line straight to the origin and assume that even low radiation causes some damage.

But no one has ever studied the effects on animals, or people, of deliberate exposure to low-level radiation. Millions of people visit "radon spas" in Germany and Russia every year, and 75 percent benefit.

EPA wants the nation to spend perhaps $300 billion to lower radon exposure. But the effect of all that spending will be to make people have more cancer, more illness, and die sooner. "At least 20,000 people are dying of lung cancer each year in the U.S. who could have been saved by raising the radon concentration of the air in their homes."

Note: I have no financial relationship to any supplier.

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This research paper is also available at Joseph Hattersley's Website.

Contact Joseph Hattersley for more information or with any questions.

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