Is Our Water Too Clean?

Diseases caused by contaminated water are common in the developing world, but they’re also making a comeback in the United States where the water might be too clean. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Charity Nebbe
explains:

Transcript

Diseases caused by contaminated water are common in the developing
world, but they’re also making a comeback in the United States where
the water might be too clean. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Charity Nebbe has more:


In 1993, the water-borne pathogen Cryptosporidium claimed 54 lives in
Milwaukee. Incidents of that magnitude are rare, but outbreaks of
water-borne pathogens are increasingly common.


Floyd Frost is an epidemiologist at Lovelace Respiratory Research
Institute in New Mexico and he believes the increase in disease is
linked to improvement in water purification technology. As evidence he
points to his research, published in The Journal of Infectious
Diseases, that shows lower incidence of disease in communities that
drink surface water…


“Perhaps the low dose exposures in surface water are immunizing
people so that they don’t get sick, whereas in the ground water it’s
relatively clean most of the time, but when contamination occurs people
get much sicker.”


Frost believes that to prevent future outbreaks water treatment
facilities need to focus on preventing plant failures rather than
improving purification.


For the GLRC, I’m Charity Nebbe.

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