CHLORINATED DRINKING WATER

Our cities purify our sewage laden drinking water from lakes and rivers with chlorine to kill the bacteria. Our swimming pools are loaded with chlorine to accommodate the hundreds of people that swim in them.

Yet chlorine in our water may be a source of increased rates of cancer.

For example, “consuming chlorinated drinking water is associated with a 20 to 40% increase in the incidence of colon and rectal cancer, according to the results of a Norwegian study published in the “International Journal of Epidemiology in 1992. Another study done by Harvard University and the Medical College of Wisconsin found that the consumption of chlorinated drinking water accounts for 15% of all rectal cancers and 9% of all bladder cancers in North America.

That’s an additional 6,500 cases of rectal cancer and 4,200 cases of bladder cancer each year. The study found that people drinking chlorinated water over long periods of time have a 38% increase in their chances of contracting rectal cancer and a 21% increase in the risk of contracting bladder cancer.

The dangers from inhaling chlorine can exceed those derived from drinking chlorinated water. The amount of chloroform, the most common trihalomethane in chlorinated water, in haled or absorbed through the skin during a typical shower may be 6 times higher than that absorbed from chlorinated drinking water, states the “International Health News”. Source, “Definitive Guide to Cancer” a source book written by W. John Diamond, M.D. and W. Lee Cowden, M.D. and Burton Goldberg, published by Future Medicine Publishing, Inc., Tiburon, California, 1997, see its website at http://www.alternativemedicine.com/index1.shtml

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