What Are Experts Saying About Chloramine Water And Cancer?

While there are lots of chlorine filters on the market, there aren’t many effective chloramine water filters to choose from.  Only recently have facilities started switching from chlorine to chloramines for disinfection purposes.

Crystal Clear Water Systems

They made the switch because chlorine tends to dissipate, as it makes its way through the pipelines.  Chloramines, on the other hand, remain active.

In terms of killing bacteria and other germs in the pipelines, that’s a good thing.  But, there are some drawbacks.  Public healthcare organizations consider the drawbacks minor, because controlling waterborne illnesses is much more important to them.  To the individual, the drawbacks are scary.

Researchers have shown that cancer-causing byproducts are created when chloramines react with organic material.  In Canada, it has been estimated that every year, there are 700 new cases of cancer caused by exposure to those byproducts.

This is not exposure that occurs when handling the chemicals, as one would in a facility, although that is a health risk.  It is exposure that occurs when we drink, cook with and shower in unfiltered water on a daily basis.  Since the chloramines remain active, they react with bacteria on our skin to form those cancer-causing byproducts.

If we make an effort to reduce our exposure to these chemicals, whenever possible, we reduce our risk of cancer, which is currently the number one cause of death in the United States.  Installing an effective chloramine water filter that also traps the disinfection byproducts is an easy and inexpensive step to take towards better long-term health.  Systems are available for the kitchen, the showerhead and even the whole house.

An effective filter will include multiple steps.  Granular activated carbon reduces cancer-causing chemicals.  A carbon and multi-media block further reduces them to a point that they are practically non-existent.

The best systems also include an ion exchange step, because that removes lead and other metallic particles.  It balances the mineral content and improves the pH level.

Chloramine water filters are always recommended for home aquariums, because the chemical is toxic to fish and plants.  Filters for aquariums actually cost more than those that can be mounted on a kitchen tap.

Treating cancer is expensive, which is why socialist countries like Canada are interested in the number of annual cases associated with exposure to disinfection byproducts.  They want to know how much it is costing them. 

Perhaps the best thing that they could do is supply all homes with an effective chloramine water filter.  It would probably save them money, in the long run.

Why is bottled water waste a concern? Here are just a few reasons…

Americans used 50 billion water bottles in 2006 and sent 38 billion water bottles to landfills, the equivalent of 912 million gallons of oil.1, 2, 3, 4 If laid end to end, that’s enough bottles to travel from the Earth to the Moon and back 10 times.5 If placed in a landfill or littered, those bottles could take up to 1,000 years to biodegrade.2

• The energy we waste using bottled water would be enough to power 190,000 homes.6
• In 2006, the average American used 167 disposable water bottles, but only recycled 38.1
• Americans used about 50 billion plastic water bottles in 2006. However, the U.S.’s recycling rate for plastic is only 23 percent, which means 38 billion water bottles — more than $1 billion worth of plastic — are wasted each year.1

Study says even ‘safe’ drinking water poses risks to elderly

From Press Democrat:

Using extra water filters can reduce the number of stomach illnesses experienced by the elderly in Sonoma County, even though the drinking water meets all standards, according to a UC Berkeley study.

The difference, 12 percent, could be significant because the elderly tend to be less tolerant to pathogens and get gastrointestinal illnesses more severely, said John Colford Jr., the principal researcher for UC’s School of Public Health.

“It is statistically significant, it is larger than you expect to see by random chance,” Colford said. “It is important.”

Colford, however, said the study is not an indication that Sonoma County Water Agency water, which meets all state and federal standards, is unsafe.

Full news account here.

Who Says Tap Water Is Unhealthy?

“Each day, millions of Americans turn on their taps and get water that exceeds the legal limits for dangerous contaminants.” —USA Today

An examination of 65 of the 3,000 largest utilities found that cities such as Philadelphia, Boston, New York City, Providence RI, and Portland ME, are “manipulating the results of tests used to detect lead in water, violating federal law and putting millions of Americans at risk,” The Washington Post reported. More than 250 major cities currently exceed the EPA‘s lead standards, and many of them have been deceptive, or even fraudulent, in their reporting of the problems.

“Each day, millions of Americans turn on their taps and get water that exceeds the legal limits for dangerous contaminants.”
USA Today-Special Report, “How Safe Is Your Water?”

“Cancer risk among people drinking chlorinated water is as much as 93% higher than among those whose water does not contain chlorine.”
U.S. Council of Environmental Quality

“We have known for a long time that chloramines can trigger, rather than cause asthma.
Ralph Riley, Head of the National Pool Water Treatment Advisory Group

“Each day in America, about 30 cases of rectal cancer may be associated with THMs (chlorination by products) in drinking water.”
Natural Resources Defense Council

“U.S. drinking water contains more than 2,100 toxic chemicals that can cause cancer.”
Ralph Nader Research Group

“Drinking water plants are old and out of date, and water supplies are increasingly threatened and contaminated by chemicals and micro-organisms.”
Natural Resources Defense Council

“The way we guarantee safe drinking water is broken and needs to be fixed.”
Carol Browner, U.S. EPA Chief

“The risk of disease associated with public drinking water has passed from the theoretical to the real.”
Dr. David Ozonoff, Boston University School of Public Health

“More than 45 million Americans drank water supplied by systems where the unregulated and potentially deadly contaminant Cryptosporidium was found in their raw or treated water.”
Natural Resources Defense Council

“Drinking water in the U.S. is among the top four public health risks posed by environmental problems.”
Former EPA Administrator William K. Reilly

“Residues of 39 pesticides and their degradation products have been detected in the groundwater of 34 states.”
National Academy of Sciences

“Thirty-five percent of the reported gastrointestinal illnesses among tap water drinkers were water related and preventable.”
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

“There’s no telling precisely how many Americans get sick each year from drinking bad water… I would say that the cases we learn about are the tip of the iceberg.”
Deborah Levy, Waterborne Disease Expert, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

“Weed killers were found in tap water of 28 out of 29 cities tested. The results of these tests reveal widespread contamination of tap water with many different pesticides at levels that present serious health risks. We estimate that 45,000 infants in these 29 cities drank infant formula reconstituted with tap water contaminated with multiple weed killers.”
Environmental Working Group Report, “Weed Killers by the Glass”

“Each year in the U.S., lead in drinking water contributes to 480,000 cases of learning disorders in children and 560,000 cases of hypertension in adult males.”
U.S. EPA Report Summary

“Lead is the number-one environmental health threat to our children.”
U.S. EPA

“The one thing we know for sure about toxins in our drinking water, is that the more we look, the more we find.”
Jacquelyn Warren, Natural Resources Defense Council

And the list goes on and on!

The fact is that today in our industrialized society we use over 75,000 toxic chemicals, and over 1000 new ones are developed each year. We have learned the hard way that any chemical we use will eventually wind up in the water we drink. There is no “new water,” the planet just keeps reusing and recycling the same water over and over. Our water treatment plants are not designed to remove these synthetic chemicals, and as a result we find traces of health-threatening contaminants in most of our public water supplies.

Seventy years ago, before we had this multitude of chemical compounds in our environment, 1 in 50 people could expect to get cancer in his or her life time. Today, 1 in 3 Americans, 1 in 2 males, will become cancer statistics! Cancer is a man-made disease, and almost completely preventable. The purity of our water is one of the most important factors in the prevention of degenerative disease. With the risk so great and the solution so simple, why take the chance? In-home water filtration is the easiest, most effective and most economical way to have safe, healthy water for you and your family.

Aquasana makes healthy water affordable and convenient. The AQ-4000 is certified by the California Department of Health Services, the most rigorous certification entity in the world, to remove greater than 99% of alachlor, benzene, lindane, TCE, THMs, cryptosporidium, giardia, and VOCs, more than 97% of atrazine, and more than 93% of MTBE. Removal of benzene, atrazine, MTBE, VOC, cyst and THM is unique to the Aquasana AQ-4000. It performs better, has a more attractive design and, at less than 10¢ a gallon, the AQ-4000 is much more economical to use than a pour-through pitcher filter!