Health issues drinking water

Water Quality and Health Council. Drinking water chlorination. A review of disinfection practices and issues, www.waterandhealth.org/drinkingwater/ wp.html... 

States have made substantial recent progress in the adoption, and EPA approval, of toxic pollutant water-quahty standards. Furthermore, virtually all states have at least proposed new toxics criteria for priority toxic pollutants since Section 303 (c) (2) (B) was added to the CWA in February of 1987. Unfortunately, not all such state proposals address, in a comprehensive manner, the requirements or Section 303 (c) (2) (B). For example, some states have proposed to adopt criteria to protect aquatic hfe, but not human health other states have proposed human health criteria that do not address major exposure pathways (such as the combination of both fish consumption and drinking water). In addition, in some cases final adoption or proposed state toxics criteria that would be approved by EPA has been substantially delayed due to controversial and difficult issues associated with the toxic pollutant criteria adoption process. 

No animal or human data were available for inhalation exposure. There are no data regarding effects in humans after oral exposure. Information is available in animals regarding health effects following acute, intermediate, and chronic oral ingestion of diisopropyl methylphosphonate. The animal data obtained after oral exposure indicate that diisopropyl methylphosphonate is moderately toxic after acute bolus exposure but has a lower order of toxicity after intermediate and chronic exposures in food. No data were found on the toxicity of diisopropyl methylphosphonate after exposure in drinking water. Further, diisopropyl methylphosphonate is rapidly metabolized and excreted and does not accumulate. It does not appear to have reproductive or developmental effects. At the doses tested, it does not appear to be an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor, although this issue has not been resolved yet. Limited data are available for dermal exposure in humans and animals. Diisopropyl methylphosphonate does not appear to be a... 

There is uncertainty as to what levels of MTBE in drinking water cause a risk to public health.9 U.S. EPA has issued an advisory suggesting that drinking water should not contain MTBE in concentrations >20-40 pg/L, based on taste and odor concerns, but has not issued a federal maximum contaminant level (MCL) for MTBE, which will be based on the ongoing U.S. EPA studies.1... 

The disinfection of drinking water has been rightly hailed as a public health triumph of the twentieth century. Before its widespread use, millions of people died from waterborne diseases. Now, people in developed nations receive quality drinking water every day from their public water systems. However, chemical disinfection has also produced an unintended health hazard the potential for cancer and reproductive and developmental effects (including early-term miscarriages and birth defects) that are associated with chemical disinfection by-products (DBFs) [1-6]. Research is being conducted worldwide to solve these important human health issues. 

Accuracy in the laboratory is obviously an important issue. If the analysis results reported by a laboratory are not accurate, everything a company or government agency strives for, the entire TQM system, may be in jeopardy. If the customer discovers the error, especially through painful means, the trust the public has placed in the entire enterprise is lost. For example, if a baby dies due to nitrate contamination in drinking water that a city s health department had determined to be safe, that department, indeed the entire city government, is liable. In this "worst-case scenario," some employees would likely lose their jobs and perhaps even be brought to justice in a court of law. 

Health issues are already influencing the dynamics of the soft drinks industry, and this influence is likely to become more pronounced as time progresses. Bottled water, fruit-based still drinks and fruit juice/nectars have gained volume on the back of an increased understanding of good health. As consumers, we wish to live healthy and die healthy . At the core of this is the concept of... 

Gerald van Belle holds joint appointments as professor in the Departments of Biostatistics and of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences at the University of Washington. Dr. van Belle received his PhD in mathematical statistics from the University of Toronto. His research has focused on the use of statistics to study various environmental health issues, including exposure to pollutants in air and drinking water, and environmental risk factors for Alzheimer s disease. Dr. van Belle served as a member of the National Research Council Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology and was a member of the Committee to Review EPA s Research Grants Program. 

NAS/NRC (1989). National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council. Pharmacokinetics and the risk assessment of drinking water contaminants, page 108 in Drinking Water and Health, Volume 9 Selected Issues in Risk Assessment (National Academy Press, Washington). 

In 1997, the Declaration of the Environment Leaders of the Eight on Children s Environmental Health acknowledged the special vulnerability of children and committed their countries to take action on several specific environmental health issues, such as chronic lead poisoning, microbiologically contaminated drinking-water, endocrine disrupting chemicals, environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), and poor air quality. 

Accessibility to safe drinking-water and management of waste-water are important health issues in developing countries. It is estimated that 2.4 billion people, including the poorest in the world, lack access to basic sanitation, and 1.1 billion people lack access to even improved water sources. In the less developed countries, only... 

Rice GE, Teuschler LK, Bull RJ, Feder PI, Simmons JE. 2009. Evaluating the similarity of complex drinking water disinfection by-product mixtures overview of the issues. J Toxicol Environ Health A 72 429 -36. 

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