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New Cancer Causing Agent Found in Our Water Supply
By Tony Isaacs on 08/12/2010
We have long known about carcinogens in common household items such as cosmetics and cleansers and the dangers they represented when we were exposed to them. Now, a new study is reporting that most of us are being exposed to a new cancer-causing compound created by household items washed down the drain.
In the new study, Yale researchers found evidence that common household items such as cleaners, shampoos and detergents are creating a chemical cocktail that is combining with chlorine compound and resulting in a new cancer causing agent in water supplies that come from sewage treatment plants. The compound is NDMA, which is a nitrosamine. Nitrosamines are known to be highly carcinogenic and have been especially linked to bladder cancers.
The new study was conducted by researchers at the Yale Department of Chemical Engineering and was published earlier this year in Environmental Science and Technology. Thus far scientists know little about the new nitrosamine compound other than that it causes cancer. Though the scientists are not sure exactly how NDMA forms, they suspect that the combination of compounds found in common household items lead to the formation of NDMA when water is chlorinated.
Researcher William Mitch and colleagues noted that scientists have known that NDMA and other nitrosamines can form in small amounts when wastewater and water are disinfected with chlorine. Although nitrosamines are found in a wide variety of sources, including processed meats and tobacco smoke, scientists have little knowledge about their precursors in water. Previous studies with cosmetics have found that substances called quaternary amines, which are also ingredients in household cleaning agents, may play a role in the formation of nitrosamines. Quaternary amine monomers are widely used in antibacterial soaps and mouthwashes, while polymers are used in shampoos, detergents, and fabric softeners.
In the study, the researchers collected treated wastewater from wastewater treatment facilities in three Connecticut cities. The researchers also examined the effects of adding common household cleansers, shampoos and detergents.
Their laboratory research showed that when mixed with chloramine, household cleaning products including shampoo, dishwashing detergent and laundry detergent formed NDMA. The researchers report noted that sewage treatment plants might remove some of quaternary amines that form NDMA. However, quaternary amines are used in such large quantities it is believed that some still persist and have a potentially harmful effect in the water treated at sewage treatment plants.
Notably, the same group of researchers previously found high levels of nitrosamine disinfection byproducts in swimming pools, hot tubs and aquariums that had been disinfected with chlorine. The highest nitrosamine detected in chlorinated swimming pools and hot tubs reached levels up to 500-fold greater than the drinking water concentration of nitrosamines associated with a one in one million lifetime cancer risk.
Printer-friendly versionAbout the author
Tony Isaacs, is a natural health author, advocate and researcher who hosts The Best Years in Life website for those who wish to avoid prescription drugs and mainstream managed illness and live longer, healthier and happier lives naturally. Mr. Isaacs is the author of books and articles about natural health, longevity and beating cancer including "Cancer's Natural Enemy" and is working on a major book project due to be published later this year. He is also a contributing author for the worldwide advocacy group S.A N.E.Vax. Inc which endeavors to uncover the truth about HPV vaccine dangers.
Mr. Isaacs is currently residing in scenic East Texas and frequently commutes to the even more scenic Texas hill country near Austin and San Antonio to give lectures and health seminars. He also hosts the CureZone Ask Tony Isaacs - featuring Luella May forum as well as the Yahoo Health Group Oleander Soup and he serves as a consultant to the Utopia Silver Supplement Company.
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Anonymous
Thank you for the information. A couple of years ago, I learned that the water in our suburban community in St. Louis County was now being "chlorinated" by chloramine. With biochemistry courses in my background, I was curious and looked it up when I got home. I learned that it does not escape from water as a vapor, even when the water is boiled. Perhaps around the same time, our City Council had contracted to get our water from the Missouri River instead of the Meramec, which has a more local watershed. We were told that our water now had traces of atrazine and less or no radon. Our aging water plant, which needed to be replaced, is now a pump station for at least some of the water we receive.
I have a water still which I have used off and on over the last 10 years or more. Prior to the change, when I distilled off a gallon of water, all the liquid came off and left behind solid white residue. Since then, when I distill off a gallon of water, the residue includes a tablespoon or two of yellow liquid. I didn't find the color of chloramine and/or its reaction products in my fairly superficial search. The Missouri River is likely a major watershed for feedlots as well as a lot of agricultural chemicals (including atrazine). It would be helpful to know what is in the residual liquid that we are now drinking in our seemingly clear tap water. I got a Brita (filtered) pitcher and found that it did not remove the yellow liquid residue. Unless it has nutritive value, it would be nice to have it removed.
HM
Steve
Good God, nothing is good for us any more....
I filter my shower water....I filter my drinking and cooking water...
Back in 1989, I started having leg numbness after bathing. When I used a water filter on the bath water, IT WENT AWAY!!!!
When I went back to unfiltered water, IT CAME BACK!!!!!!
So, since then I have been filtering ALL WATER!!!!!!!
AND THAT IS JUST FOR CHLORINE!!!!!!
Be well and happy!!!
Steve
anubhav kapoor
This might be a bit surprising to you but the fact is that even the retailed, treated water is getting increasingly contaminated. There was a report in BBC a few weeks back that some farmers have started using some aerated drinks for sprinkling their crops since the chemical level found in them is so high that they acts as natural pesticides!!
Anonymous
God help us, we are killing ourselves and making ourselves sick, having to have so many different things in our homes, to cleanse our bodies, our dishes, our homes..etc..and of course the advertising media, just keeps telling us of new things...when I was a kid back in Mo. I remember, we bathed once a week, I'm not recommending that, but we used the 1 brand of bar soap, 1 of shampoo, and sometimes, lots of times used the bar as shampoo too..and often baking soda or salt as tooth paste..there were only a few brands and limited products, i.e. toothpaste, deod. laundry soap...we often made ours, and I'm sure it was not good for us either, but it did our bodies, our hair, our laundry the floors, etc...old fashioned home made lye soap...we also had an outhouse, another not so good thing, and used lye in it, too...What is good for us, anymore? And how can we filter our own water, to make it safe...so many systems on the market...I just jabbering, so will quit...My daughter has refused to drink water for years, insisting it causes cancer...I don't know when I will show her this article...dang, she was right!
Anonymous
Does no one know the relationship of quaternary amines (ammonia) mixed with chlorine compounds? That's a killer without shampoos etc. The first mixture used in California for the gas chamber executions was a mixture of chlorine and ammonia. I'm amazed this relationship of deadly chemicals mixed together was not immediately recognized as a primary concern.
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