Deadly effect of arsenic in drinking water measured in massive study

[n2doc]

June 18, 2010
More than 20 percent of deaths in a study of 12,000 Bangladeshis were attributable to arsenic exposure from contaminated drinking water, new research reports.

The large 10-year study is the first to prospectively measure the relationship between individual exposure to arsenic and its associated mortality risk, the authors said. The data, collected by an international team from Chicago, New York, and Bangladesh, will be published early online Saturday in The Lancet.

Since the widespread installation of hand-pumped wells to tap groundwater sources in the 1970's, as many as 77 million people - about half the population of Bangladesh - have been accidentally exposed to dangerous levels of arsenic. The World Health Organization calls the exposure "the largest mass poisoning of a population in history."

The Health Effects of Arsenic Longitudinal Study (HEALS) was led by Habibul Ahsan, MD, MMedSc, Director of the Center for Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention at the University of Chicago Medical Center. Arsenic levels from well drinking-water and repeated biennial urine samples of 12,000 subjects were associated with deaths in that population over the last decade.

For the 25 percent of people exposed to the highest levels of arsenic, mortality risk increased by nearly 70 percent, the study determined. People exposed to moderate levels of the poisonous chemical also exhibited increased deaths from chronic disease, relative to those whose exposure was within WHO recommendations of 10 parts per million.

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http://www.physorg.com/news196090774.html

[HillbillyBob]

1. How can you remove or filter out asenic from water?

Is it possible? Is this tainted water natural or is there some toxic source as a mine?
I think we are going to see or actually discover that a lot of previously fresh good water has been contaminated by industrial wastes. We are on well here, lots of calcium and iron, good for bones, bad for appliances. There was talk of a new uranium mine in Va about 20 miles from here..and over the same aquifer, the mining method they had planned to use was mountaintop removal. Many small towns in WV now cannot use water from their aquifer because of the large blasts from the mines.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

2. Memo to self

Don't drink the water in Bangladesh.