This short book is about 45 pages in printed form.
Images in this book did not transfer to this medium.
Water Facts
Dangers in Our Drinking Water
And
The Distilled Water Solution
The following information is presented to assist the public in understanding the dangers inherent in the consumption of public and bottled drinking water. Articles have been edited for relevant content. Even some edited articles are quite lengthy. The reader is advised to thoroughly consider the full texts as presented.
For the sake of space, commentary has been kept to a minimum. These articles should be considered a representative sample. The purpose of this booklet is to acquaint the reader with the situation regarding public drinking water and not to provide an exhaustive exposition.
Also, this book was prepared for my patients while I was offering services in Utah. Utah references therefore, were given preference, but rest assured, the same type of information applies to all of the United States.
The only immediate and reasonable solution to this problem is steam distillation. Information on purchasing a steam distiller is found at the end of this booklet. If you have further questions you may feel free to contact the publisher.
Prepared by
Dr. Gregory Lowrey, Wholistic Practioner
Published by
Whole Life Health Services
visit Dr. Lowrey
at
Whole Life Health Services 2000
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] reports that since 1974 over 2,100 organic and inorganic drinking water contaminants have been found in U.S. drinking water supplies. Other Scientific Research Agencies report over 60,000 such contaminants in public drinking water sources.
Sides Clash Over Risks Of Arsenic: 124 Utah water systems test positive for the toxic element
BY BRENT ISRAELSEN
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE March 05, 2000
At least 124 drinking-water systems in Utah have tested positive for arsenic…
A national environmental group … says the [EPA] standard is seriously flawed and that arsenic threatens the health of thousands of Utahn’s.
“There are about 211,000 people in Utah who are drinking water that poses an unacceptable risk of cancer,” said Erik Olson, senior attorney for the New York City-based Natural Resources Defense Council.
The NRDC is preparing a federal lawsuit to force the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to tighten its 42-year-old arsenic standard, currently set at 50 parts per billion.
“We estimate that any level more than 3 parts per billion is a dangerous one,” Olson said.
Three-fourths of the states are failing to address water pollution
Salt Lake Tribune Thursday, April 6, 2000
BY H. JOSEF HEBERT
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — Three-fourths of the states are failing to address water pollution caused by runoff from farms and forests, ignoring a provision in the federal Clean Water Act…
Gasoline additive cleans air, fouls water
USA Today
Jan. 21, 2000
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - It smells like turpentine and spreads through water so quickly and thoroughly that a scant spoonful can foul an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
MTBE, a widely used gasoline additive that makes cars burn cleaner, has posed a cruel dilemma: It’s making the air cleaner, but it’s polluting the water.
A suspected animal carcinogen with unknown health effects on humans, MTBE has become the curse of water officials from California to New England.
Leaking from gas stations’ underground fuel tanks, it has forced wells to close, run up millions of dollars in cleanup costs, sparked lawsuits and prompted state, local and federal investigations into a petrochemical that is still something of a mystery.
”It’s a diabolical chemical. It moves up, it moves down, it moves everywhere. Our feeling is that as long as MTBE is in gasoline, our groundwater is in jeopardy,” said Dennis Cocking of the South Tahoe Public Utility District, where 12 of 34 wells were closed because of MTBE.
According to Marsano, the chemical has been detected in varying amounts in all 50 states. Significant MTBE contamination also has been found in such pastoral areas as Ronan, Mont., and Spring Green, Wis., as well as in major cities like Dallas, Denver and Las Vegas.
”You can see it in a contiguous line from California to the East Coast. One of the great questions here is why a chemical that we don’t have a lot of information about is being used in such a widespread manner,” Marsano said. ”At this point, we think it is a problem in every state…
A European study in the mid-1990s linked MTBE to liver and kidney tumors…
Pure Water Newsletter
Eldon C. Muehling
Today, the U.S. Environment Protection Agency tentatively classified MTBE as a possible human carcinogen based on animal studies. Consumers can detect the turpentine-like odor and taste at extremely low levels. Symptoms of exposure include: headaches, dizziness, eye irritation, burning of the nose and throat, disorientation and nausea due to MTBE in the air.
There are currently no State or Federal regulations that require municipalities to test for MTBE in drinking water but it is on the EPA’s Drinking Water Priority List and the EPA has issued a drinking water advisory level (based on taste and odor) of 20-40 parts per billion. A public health goal has been set at 14 ppb.
Is Your Drinking Water Safe?
By Keith Mulvihill
E coli. Cryptosporidium Giardia. Do you know what’s lurking in the water that comes from your kitchen faucet? Millions of us are so wary of drinking the stuff that we’re willing to spend almost $5 billion each year trying to clean it up or avoid it completely-installing home filtering systems and buying cases of bottled water.
Are we paranoid? The tap water available to most Americans through municipal supply systems has been treated under the Safe Drinking Water Act. Most of the time, our water is just fine.
But not all of the time. Treatment plants have breakdowns; old pipes leach lead; private wells or smaller water-supply sources can be contaminated. “We can’t take the safety of our drinking water for granted,” says Carol M. Browner, administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In fact, the EPA recommends that at least five million people consider avoiding tap water entirely: those who are infected with HIV, cancer patients on chemotherapy drugs, and organ-transplant recipients taking immunosuppressive drugs.
Other scientists say even the rest of us have good reason for concern. “Approximately forty-five million Americans in thousands of communities drink water that is polluted with fecal matter, parasites, disease causing microbes, and pesticides-at levels that violate Safe Drinking Water Act standards,” says Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, a non-profit organization based in Washington, DC. Studies have shown that such contaminants may increase the risk of cancer, gastrointestinal disease, and miscarriage.
Experts are particularly worried about the impact on children. One recent study by the Harvard School of Public Health found a 10 percent increase in gastrointestinal emergency visits for children between the ages of 3 and 13 within four days after significant increases in water cloudiness even though testing indicated the water was well within safety standards.
“Children drink more water than adults, relative to their size,” notes Joel Schwartz, Ph.D., an environmental epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health. “Because of this, infants and young children are more vulnerable to water borne contaminants.”
‘Time of year is a factor too. During the summer, for instance, warm weather allows more microorganisms to grow, so treatment centers add more chlorine to kill them-and more chlorine creates higher levels of dangerous by-products called trihalomethanes (’l`HMs). Last summer, city officials in Chesapeake, VA. monitored THM levels on a weekly basis; in late July, they exceeded new Federal limits taking effect this month by as much as 60 percent.
Why worry? “There is increasing evidence of a link between bladder cancer, and possibly rectal and colon cancer, and long-term exposure to chlorinated by products,” says Kenneth Canter, Ph.D., an epidemiologist at the National Cancer Institute. THMs-even at levels below the regulated limits-have also been linked to miscarriage.
There is some good news: This month the EPA begins a new effort to tighten contamination standards and give consumers more information about what’s in their water. For the first time, treatment facilities that serve communities with 10,000 people or more will be required to improve their filtering of cryptosporidium, a parasite that in Milwaukee in 1993 caused more than 100 deaths and made more than 400,000 people ill. The new regulations also will tighten standards to limit other harmful microbes such as giardia, bacteria, and viruses. [But will they tighten them enough – and what do we do in the meantime?]
Chemicals and Crime: A Truly Toxic Effect
The Washington Post Friday, May 26, 2000
Judy Mann
Rates of violent crime can vary tremendously between American counties. For example, one community may experience only 100 crimes per 100,000 people, while another of about the same size and population may have more than 3,000 per 100,000.
Why such a huge difference?
Conventional thinkers blame poverty, lack of education and opportunity, and bad role models. But a number of scientists and researchers now say there is substantial evidence that environmental toxins such as lead and pesticides are implicated, particularly when children are exposed to them early in life.
Herbert L. Needleman, of the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Medicine, did much of the influential research that led the government to ban lead in fuel in 1979. He was among the early researchers who established that children with elevated lead levels had lower IQs, poor reading skills and problems paying attention. Prompted by “Crime and Human Nature”, a controversial book published in the mid-1980’s that explored the body’s role in criminality, Needleman began wondering what role lead exposure might play in criminal behavior.
He studied 300 7-year-old boys in primary school and measured their bone lead concentration, then measured the burden of bone lead against reports of antisocial behavior from the teachers, parents and the youngsters. He retested the youngsters two years later and repeated the behavioral survey when they were 11 years old.
Both parents and teachers of high-lead children were reporting significantly more social problems, delinquent and aggressive behavior, acting out, anxiety and/or depression, and attention problems. High-lead students also reported more delinquent behavior themselves. These behavior problems “went up in direct relation to the lead levels in the bone,” Needleman said.
He also found much higher lead rates in a group of 416 juvenile delinquents he studied. Adjusting for such factors as race, parental education, occupation, family size and crime rate in the neighborhood the youths came from, he found those with high lead levels were twice as likely to be delinquent than those with low levels.
He estimates that 11 to 38 percent of the nation’s delinquency is attributable to high lead exposure…
Lead, he says, is “a brain poison.” It creates biochemical changes that result in lower IQ, an inability to sit still and language and reading problems. “The brain is important in regulating behavior, particularly the prefrontal lobes. They are involved in making decisions, choices, resisting impulses.” A number of studies of criminals have found disturbances in the prefrontal lobes. A study Needleman did of young children exposed to lead in 1976 found those with elevated levels were seven times more likely to fail out of high school 12 years later, proving that the effects of lead are permanent.
Roger D. Masters, a Nelson A. Rockefeller professor of government emeritus at Dartmouth College and president of the Foundation for Neuroscience and Society, has broken the academic mold by combining chemistry and public policy, and it’s taken him right to the heavy metals such as lead, manganese and cadmium. “The heavy metals affect the neurotransmitters, “ he said. “Manganese has the opposite effect of Prozac. It reduced serotonin.”
Masters has looked at the crime rates and found a disturbing correlation between high lead rates and the use of silicofluoride to fluoridate water systems. In most of the states where he has measured high lead levels, he has found them to be much higher when silicofluoride is in the water. “If you look at violent crime, you find the same kind of thing. A kind of doubling of the crime rates where silicofluoride is used. It seems to have the effect of breaking down barriers between the blood and the gut. IT appears that silicofluoride increases the amount of toxins that get into the blood.”
He found that when silicofluoride was in the water five times as many children had high lead levels.
“We’ve got to start looking seriously as a culture at what we are doing to ourselves though chemistry. One clear effect is toxic chemicals can destroy inhibitory systems and cause violence. Absorption of lead depends on a number of things, and one is diet. Lead and calcium bind to the same place. A child without [sufficient] calcium is likely to pick up more lead.”
He closed the interview with the observation that the Roman Empire fell because the Romans used lead to sweeten wine.
These researchers…are finding that environmental pollutants are key players in causing violent behavior, as well as diseases.
Drugged Waters
Science News March 21, 1998
Does it matter that pharmaceuticals are turning up in water supplies?
By JANET RALOFF
Chemists at an agricultural research laboratory run by the Swiss government were screening lake water for pesticide contamination when they ran across a puzzling result. Their instruments turned up a compound that resembled mecoprop, an herbicide they had been looking for, but it wasn’t a perfect match.
Suspecting that they might have found the pesticide in an early stage of degradation, Hans-Rudolf Buser and Markus D. Müller probed further. To their surprise, the pollutant turned out to be clofibric acid, a widely used cholesterol-lowering drug.
Immediately, the pair began scouting for the drug elsewhere — and they found it everywhere, from rural mountain lakes to rivers flowing through densely populated areas. Concentrations, ranging from 1 to 100 nanograms per liter of water, seemed to correlate with how densely a region was inhabited. While barely detectable, these concentrations resemble those of other, more conventional pollutants found in the environment, Buser notes, such as a persistent, toxic ingredient of the pesticide lindane (SN: 3/15/97, p. 157).
The ubiquity of clofibric acid, which is not even manufactured in Switzerland, argued against the possibility that the contamination stems from some industrial accident or spill, Buser says. The only reasonable explanation, he and Müller conclude in the Jan. 1 Environmental Science & Technology, is that it comes from human wastes.
Though the body tends to break down any medicine it uses, how effectively it does so can vary widely — by individual and by drug. As a result, in some cases, 50 to 90 percent of an administered drug may be excreted from the body in its original or its biologically active form. In other cases, partially degraded drugs are converted back into their active form through chemical reactions with the environment.
When it comes to waterborne drugs, however, clofibric acid is just the tip of the iceberg. Heberer and Stan are part of a Berlin research team that has found drugs for regulating concentrations of lipids in the blood (such as phenazone and fenofibrate) and analgesics (including ibuprofen and diclofenac) in groundwater beneath a sewage treatment plant. This aquifer serves as a source of drinking water. Other researchers have detected chemotherapy drugs, antibiotics, and hormones in bodies of water that supply drinking water.
Most countries have regulatory agencies explicitly charged with protecting the environment from pesticides and other potentially toxic industrial chemicals.
Drugs, however, have come to be regulated by health departments, which possess little expertise in protecting natural ecosystems and water supplies. Moreover, they tend not to look at pharmaceuticals as potential pollutants — even though up to 90 percent of a delivered drug may leave the body in urine and feces.
When asked whether FDA requires any monitoring of water supplies to see whether concentrations in the real world match the predictions of drug manufacturers’ models, Daniel C. Kearns of FDA in Rockville, Md. Said “no.”
If they had, many German chemists now believe, regulators might have received a rude awakening — as Thomas A. Ternes did.
A chemist with the municipal water research laboratory in Wiesbaden, Ternes realized that tons of medicines are prescribed each year in Germany, “but nobody knows what happens to those compounds after they are excreted.” So a few years ago he launched a water-monitoring project to look for drugs in sewage, treated water, and rivers.
He expected to find a few medicinal compounds. Instead, he detected 30 of the 60 common pharmaceuticals for which he tested. These included lipid-lowering drugs, antibiotics, analgesics, antiseptics, and beta-blocker heart drugs. He has even found residues of drugs to control epilepsy and ones that serve as contrast agents for diagnostic X rays. A report of his findings will appear later this year in Water Research. Ternes detected parts-per-billion concentrations of these drugs in both raw sewage and the water leaving treatment plants. “We also found these compounds in nearly all streams and rivers in Germany,” he says.
The highest concentrations tended to show up in the smallest rivers, where 50 percent of the water could be sewage treatment effluent. Residues of up to 10 different drugs have been found in such water at concentrations totaling 6 ppb.
Ternes notes that finding these drugs “is very hard work.” For instance, chemists usually identify a compound by comparing it against a standard sample of that compound. These standards often are not available for sale, he finds.
Adding to the problem, Heberer observes, is that almost all excreted drugs dissolve easily in water. Because conventional methods of separation take advantage of differences in the effectiveness of several solvents, it is difficult to segregate the drugs for analysis. That’s a problem Shane Snyder at Michigan State University in East Lansing has been wrestling with in his study of estrogens in sewage effluent.
While analyzing Las Vegas wastewater flowing into Lake Mead, Snyder found that “all of the estrogenicity was coming out of the very water-soluble fraction.” To isolate the chemicals responsible, he had to repeat the separation procedure 30 times or more. Though estradiol, the primary natural female sex hormone, appears to be the major estrogenic compound in this water, there is evidence that a synthetic hormone in birth control pills may also be a contributor.
“These findings are not all that surprising,” observes James F. Pendergast, acting director of theEnvironmental Protection Agency division that regulates what comes out of sewage treatment plants. For quite a while, he notes, water quality engineers have recognized that one of the highest-volume contaminants emerging in effluent — especially early in the morning — is caffeine, a drug excreted by all those people who down a cup or two of Java to jolt their bodies awake.
Although he was unfamiliar with the new European studies documenting drugs in water, Pendergast says that he has no reason to doubt their findings or the possibility that they might herald what could be found in U.S. waters, if anyone were to look.
He’s also not surprised that European chemists have stumbled onto the issue before U.S. scientists.
A number of environmental issues — from methyl mercury buildups in acidified lakes to reproductive risks from hormone-mimicking pollutants — became hot research topics in Europe before U.S. researchers jumped on the bandwagon, he says.
Snyder’s assays indicate that estradiol in water can reach 20 ppt — a concentration that can cause some male fish to produce an egg-making protein normally seen only in reproductive females. In upcoming experiments in Lake Mead, he plans to cage fish within a plume of effluent from an upstream sewage treatment plant.
Using a bacterial test that gauges a pollutant’s potential to damage DNA, Andreas Hartmann of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich has been studying effluent from hospitals and municipal wastewater treatment plants. In the March Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, he reports finding fluoroquinolones, a class of broad-spectrum antibiotics, to be the leading source of a hospital wastewater’s toxicity to DNA.
“We’re finding 0.5 microgram per liter of fluoroquinolone antibiotics in sewage treatment plant water,” Hartmann told Science News. Tests have tentatively identified the drug as ciprofloxacin. Once the antibiotic is more firmly identified, he plans to study “whether it — alone or in combination with other antibiotics — has an influence on the developing resistance to these compounds that we’re finding in pathogenic organisms in the environment.”
“If [he’s] finding fluoroquinolone antibiotics at that level in water and they’re not breaking down, that would be a problem,” says Stuart Levy, who directs the Center for Adaptation Genetics and Drug Resistance at Tufts University in Boston. Parts-per-trillion concentrations of these drugs can affect Escherichia coli and other bacteria, he notes. The 1,000 times higher concentrations reported in German wastewater suggest to Levy that “these antibiotics may be present at levels of consequence to bacteria — levels that could not only alter the ecology of the environment but also give rise to antibiotic resistance.”
More Waters Test Positive for Drugs
Science News Week of Apr. 1, 2000; Vol. 157, No. 14
J. Raloff
Over the past decade, European chemists have been documenting widespread pharmaceutical contamination of their lakes, streams, and groundwater. In San Francisco this week, U.S. and Canadian scientists offered preliminary confirmation that traces of drugs, excreted by people and livestock, similarly pollute American waters.
They presented their findings at the first major American symposium on pharmaceuticals in water, held as part of the American Chemical Society’s spring national meeting.
Water pollution by drugs “is a newly emerging issue,” observes Christian G. Daughton, a symposium co-organizer and chief of environmental chemistry at the Environmental Protection Agency’s National Exposure Research Laboratory in Las Vegas. By offering a U.S. venue for the meeting—and participation by many European leaders in this field (SN: 3/21/98, p.187)—he hoped to awaken domestic interest and catalyze research on the topic, he says.
Ironically, Daughton notes, EPA scientists examining the sludge from a U.S. sewage-treatment plant 20 years ago found that the incoming sewage contained excreted aspirin, caffeine, and nicotine. Daughton says that the findings were written off as a curiosity and all but forgotten.
At about the same time, recalls Herman Bouwer of the U.S. Agricultural Research Service in Phoenix, the cholesterol-lowering drug clofibric acid turned up in a groundwater reservoir being tapped to meet the Phoenix community’s thirst. The drug had entered with treated sewage, which the city had been using to replenish the aquifer.
“At the time,” Bouwer recalls, “we didn’t pay attention to the finding.” It should have been a wake-up call, he now argues, because if clofibric acid could pass through a sewage-treatment plant and percolate through soil unscathed, so could a host of other drugs.
And they do, new studies show.
Chris Metcalfe of Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario, reports finding a broad mix of drugs, including anticancer agents, psychiatric drugs, and anti-inflammatory compounds. “Levels of prescription drugs that we have leaving sewage-treatment plants in Canada are sometimes higher than what’s being seen in Germany,” he says.
He explains that many North American cities employ more rudimentary sewage treatment than those in Germany. Daughton observes also that some 1 million U.S. homes send their essentially untreated sewage directly into the environment.
Two years ago, the symposium’s other co-organizer, Thomas A. Ternes, documented unexpectedly high concentrations of drugs—many measured in parts per billion (ppb)—both in raw sewage and in water leaving treatment plants in Germany. The chemist, who is at the Institute for Water Research and Water Technology in Wiesbaden, Germany, now finds that these drugs enter groundwater.
Sewage effluent can amount to at least half the water in many of Germany’s smaller rivers, he notes. Groundwater fed by streams carrying relatively undiluted effluent can be tainted with 1 ppb carbamazepine, an anticonvulsive drug. Ternes has also detected similar amounts of the anti-inflammatory drug diclofenac and up to 2.4 ppb of iodine-based drugs used to improve contrast in X rays.
Because people discard their excess drugs, the town dump can also be a source of pharmaceutical pollution. Under one landfill, Ternes found groundwater tainted with 12 ppb clofibric acid and 1 ppb phenazone, an analgesic.
The latter medication also turned up in groundwater—but at far higher concentrations—under a leaking dump in Zagreb, Croatia, notes Marijan Ahel of the Rudjer Boskovic Institute in Zagreb. Some of his water samples had the drug at as much as 50 times the concentration detected by Ternes.
In the United States, federal scientists recently began probing another source of drug pollution—large feedlots for livestock. An estimated 40 percent of the antibiotics produced in the United States is fed to livestock as growth enhancers. Geochemist Mike Meyer of the U.S. Geological Survey in Raleigh, N.C., and his colleagues have begun looking for antibiotics in hog-waste lagoons.
Three drugs frequently show up, one in concentrations approaching 1 part per million. The same three antibiotics, which are also prescribed for people, often appear in local waters—though usually only at one-tenth to one-hundredth the concentrations in the lagoons, Meyer notes. “So, it appears we’re getting transport of these antibiotics into surface and groundwaters,” he told Science News.
His colleagues at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta have begun sampling bacteria from the tainted waters to investigate their responses to the antibiotics present, Meyer says. Their findings could begin to resolve a long-standing question: What is the contribution, if any, of livestock to potentially dangerous reservoirs of bacteria (SN: 6/5/99, p. 356) resistant to common antibiotics?
Utah (my home state) Annual Drinking Water Purity Reports
This report is likely pretty typical of any state report on water purity
As an example of water purity testing in Utah we looked at the Annual Drinking Water Quality Report for North Logan City. This report is typical for all of Utah as it follows State Government Standards and format.
The report concludes:
“As you can see by the table, our system had no violations. We’re proud that your drinking water meets or exceeds all Federal and State requirements. We have learned through our monitoring and testing that some constituents have been detected. The EPA has determined that your water IS SAFE at these levels. “
This sounds pretty good, but there is a big deception in this report. Of the 79 industry induced toxins present in our groundwater 31 of them are granted waivers from testing. They don’t even look for these poisons.
And as shown below, they do not have to include any reference to these contaminants in their annual report. So the water is safe based on what they have agreed to look for, but don’t ask about what they refused to look at!!
Here is the exact quote from the annual pre-report:
“Synthetic Organic Contaminants including Pesticides and Herbicides (If
Water System has been issued waivers for these samples then this table
with # 26 - # 57 can be deleted from the report).”
[In this report, all 31 poisons were issued waivers]
26. 2,4-D Runoff from herbicide used on row crops
27. 2,4,5-TP (Silvex) Residue of banned herbicide
28. Acrylamide Added to water during sewage/wastewater treatment
29. Alachlor Runoff from herbicide used on row crops
30. Atrazine Runoff from herbicide used on row crops
31. Benzo(a)pyrene (PAH) Leaching from linings of water storage tanks and distribution lines
32. Carbofuran Leaching of soil fumigant used on rice and alfalfa
33. Chlordane Residue of banned termiticide
34. Dalapon Runoff from herbicide used on rights of way
35. Di(2-ethylhexyl) adipate Discharge from chemical factories
36. Di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate Discharge from rubber and chemical factories
37. Dibromochloropropane Runoff/leaching from soil fumigant used on soybeans, cotton, pineapples, and orchards
38. Dinoseb Runoff from herbicide used on soybeans and vegetables
39. Diquat Runoff from herbicide use
40. Dioxin [2,3,7,8-TCDD] Emissions from waste incineration and other combustion; discharge from chemical factories
41. Endothall Runoff from herbicide use
42. Endrin Residue of banned insecticide
43. Epichlorohydrin Discharge from industrial chemical factories; an impurity of some water treatment chemicals
44. Ethylene dibromide Discharge from petroleum refineries
45. Glyphosate Runoff from herbicide use
46. Heptachlor Residue of banned termiticide
47. Heptachlor epoxide Breakdown of heptachlor
48. Hexachlorobenzene Discharge from metal refineries and agricultural chemical factories
49. Hexachlorocyclo-Pentadiene Discharge from chemical factories
50. Lindane Runoff/leaching from insecticide used on cattle, lumber, gardens
51. Methoxychlor Runoff/leaching from insecticide used on fruits, vegetables, alfalfa, livestock
52. Oxamyl [Vydate] Runoff/leaching from insecticide used on apples, potatoes and tomatoes
53. PCBs Polychlorinated biphenyls] Runoff from landfills; discharge of waste chemicals
54. Pentachlorophenol Discharge from wood preserving factories
55. Picloram Herbicide runoff
56. Simazine Herbicide runoff
57. Toxaphene Runoff/leaching from insecticide used on cotton and cattle
And it gets worse. The declaration of water quality follows with this disclaimer:
“All sources of drinking water are subject to potential contamination by constituents that are naturally occurring or are man made. Those constituents can be microbes, organic or inorganic chemicals, or radioactive materials. All drinking water, including bottled water, may reasonably be expected to contain at least small amounts of some contaminants. The presence of contaminants does not necessarily indicate that the water poses a health risk.”
What they are telling us is that there are many thousands of contaminants including natural or man made substances such as microbes, organic or inorganic chemicals, radioactive materials and pharmaceuticals that they consider a normal part of water and they do not even look for. The EPA says they have found over 2,100 toxic contaminants in U.S. drinking water so far. Utah recognizes 79 of them and only actually looks for 48 out of the 2,100, granting waivers to 31 regognised known and often deadly poisons.
New EPA Study Elevates Cancer Rating for Top U.S. Weed Killer
Atrazine Classified “Likely Human Carcinogen” in Tap Water
Chemical May Also Cause Hormonal Damage to Infants, Children
Environmental Working Group June 27, 2000
In a set of scientific findings that will be presented to an expert advisory panel beginning on Tuesday, June 27, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is upgrading its estimate of the toxicity of atrazine, the most widely used farm weed killer in the nation, and a common tap water contaminant. In its first-ever in-depth look at the potential for atrazine to harm children, the agency not only is increasing its estimate of the chemical’s lifetime cancer potency, but also is presenting findings that atrazine has the potential to deliver potent harmful effects to the fetus infant, and child reaching puberty.
After a five year review of industry and government data summarized in its new “hazard assessment,” EPA found atrazine to be a more potent carcinogen than before. EPA had classified the weed killer as a “possible” carcinogen: now it is “likely” to cause cancer. Equally significant, the agency has concluded that short-term, perhaps even single day exposure to atrazine has the potential to cause a range of reproductive effects and developmental defects, including miscarriage, and delayed vaginal opening and penis development during puberty (EPA, 2000).
EPA is presenting its conclusion to the agency’s Scientific Advisory Panel Tuesday for review. Pending the SAP assessment, the agency will almost certainly need to adopt a new, stronger drinking water standard to protect children. The current way of regulating atrazine in drinking water is based on an annual average level, discounting seasonal spikes and peaks. This could be replaced with a new legal limit based on short-term, possibly single day, exposures to protect the fetus, the infant, and the young adult male in vulnerable windows of sensitivity. In other words, if the new assessment stands, instead of testing tap water four times a year for atrazine, utilities might have to test as often as every day during the peak contamination period - potentially more than 100 times per year.
Atrazine contaminates the tap water of more than 10 million people in the Midwest (EWG, 1999) and causes more health standard violations in tap water than any other EPA-regulated chemical pollutant. EPA’s conclusions on hormonal effects now place the pesticide squarely in the category of “endocrine disruptor” - chemicals that alter the hormone system. The agency determined that exposure to atrazine, by disrupting functions of the hormone system, might lead to increases in tumors in hormonally-sensitive tissues, such as the uterus and its lining, or the breast. EPA found strong evidence that atrazine initiates a “cascade” of biological events that could lead to a host of health problems, beginning with the suppression of hormones from the hypothalamus, which, in turn, inhibits the release of hormones from the pituitary, setting up a dangerous hormonal imbalance. The hypothalamus, among other things, influences the pituitary, which controls growth, metabolism, and reproductive function. In the case of atrazine, disruption of the function of these structures is believed to lead to changes in levels of the hormones estrogen and prolactin, which can lead to tumor formation.
Perhaps even more significantly, the new assessment marks the first time EPA scientists have looked beyond cancer as the primary health endpoint of concern following atrazine exposure. EPA has described compelling laboratory evidence that atrazine may disrupt the normal development and function of the reproductive system by causing delays in the onset of puberty in both males and females and by causing miscarriages in adult animals. Atrazine affects the levels of a number of hormones needed for normal development and function of the reproductive system, including estrogen, prolactin, luteinizing hormone, and follicle stimulating hormone. For instance, laboratory data show that the pesticide significantly alters testosterone levels in both the male and female fetus and in young male rats, perhaps the cause of the observed delay in sexual maturation.
Atrazine disrupts a broad range of hormones, leading to a variety of potential health effects. Atrazine has been linked in laboratory studies to miscarriage, including full-litter resorption; delayed onset of puberty (delayed vaginal opening and penis development during puberty); altered estrous cycles, and prostatitis (inflammation of the prostate). These effects occur in some cases after only a few days of dosing.
THE IMPORTANCE OF PURE WATER TO YOU AND YOUR FAMILY…
BY DR. BILL MISNER, Ph.D.
Water is composed of two transparent gases, 88.89% Oxygen and 11.11% Hydrogen, by weight. H2O is the formula for water in a gaseous state. The actual liquid is formed when several of these molecular gases are linked together with a hydrogen bond after being compressed to 1/1642 of their original volume. While water is easily formed in remarkably tight bonds due to the sharing of electrons between 2 hydrogen molecules and one oxygen molecule, the “Y” shaped H2O is said to be extraordinarily stable with the positive charge at the top of the structure and the negative charge at the bottom. In simple terms this means that water won’t pull apart, unless you put it in an airtight tube and exerted over 5000 lbs. pressure. That equates the stability of this simple fluid to the tensile strength of most metals! Since it literally won’t break apart its stability maintains its formula of H2O, I.E. it won’t break down easily into H3O or H2O2. Pure water formed during condensation prior to rain, for example, has a nearly neutral ph of 7.0. Since pure water has no acidity or alkalinity, it manifests a very strong polar attraction and affinity toward any and all positive (+) charged, negative (-) charged, or neutral molecules in the immediate environment. WHATEVER organic or inorganic compound it touches, it attracts, adjoins, it dissolves making an ideal carrier. Thus pure water can be a life-giving friend, but polluted water is a deadly foe.
Initially condensed rain is like a “Super Sponge”, absorbing everything it touches. At the moment of condensation, no impurities are present, but as it falls through the earth’s atmosphere it rapidly collects noxious pollutants before it strikes the ground. As it percolates through the soils, rainwater picks up all sorts of non-organic ground minerals, agricultural herbicides, pesticides, nitrates and microbial organisms from animal feces and raw human sewage. As it flows into lakes, streams, and rivers, the contaminated fluids further add to their toxicity by absorbing some of the massive corrosive chemicals dumped into the ground-water table by 240,000 industrial sites in the USA.
Water treatment plants intercept and siphon from reservoirs, lakes, aquifers, and streams the polluted water to screen the larger solid wastes and attempt to kill most (but not all) micro-organisms by chlorination.
From the treatment plant, it travels through pipes which “donate” lead, cadmium, copper and several other harmful chemicals. The best drinking water flowing through the tap in the USA measures approximately 350 parts toxic contaminants per million parts (ppm) of water while the worst is said to exceed 1000 ppm. When one considers that for each toxic contaminant per million parts of water that the body must DETOXIFY 600,000,000,000,000,000 (Quadrillion) molecules from the living tissues. All optimal metabolic functions are dependant upon macronutrient calories, micronutrient enzymes and coenzymes in a hydrolyzed solution of pure water, or to the degree that the water is polluted, the metabolism for energy production is diverted, becoming inefficient, resulting in fatigue, degenerative disease, or tissue death. Our body of living cells is a filter for toxic substances not used in normal metabolism which are discarded or deposited clogging cellular function, degenerating tissue growth, and, when these toxins are allowed to accumulate result in tissue necrosis or death. Reversing this process by drinking pure distilled water is the treatment-of-choice. Hospitals are known to use purified drinking water for heart patients, kidney patients, and newborn infants. Drinking pure water, and its affinity for dissolving and removing toxic substances may account for the increasing anecdotal reports of relief from degenerative diseases, kidney stones, arthritis, and immune system relapse. Specifically, exposure to an environment full of toxic substances in the air we breathe, the foods we eat, and the water we drink may also account for diseases caused by increased tissue free radicals.
The National Wildlife Federation detailed in a 1994 report how commonly used agricultural pesticides, herbicides, and other agricultural chemicals contribute to cancer, impaired immune system, fertility disorders, and behavioral problems in children. Once in our bodies, these toxic substances may act as “hormone copycats”, mimicking either estrogen or testosterone. Farmers dump 600,000,000 pounds, or 3 pounds per person per year annually in the ground water table of the USA.
Modern Industry in America unloads 10 times the amount of contaminated water as all the households combined. Every day 240,000 industrial plants pump 245 billion gallons of toxic solutions in to the water shed. Every year 500 new toxic chemicals are found in the tap water in addition to the 12,000 new toxins introduced in the past 20 years. Each of them, such as derivatives of mercury, arsenic, lead, cadmium, and PCB’s, are implicated free radicals causing cancer, arteriosclerosis, cardiovascular heart disease, cellular mutations, birth defects, kidney damage, loss of coordination, slurred speech, headaches, and gastric disorders. While our water treatment system does little-to-nothing to remove them, their application of chlorine to destroy water-born microbes creates an additional free radical toxic accumulates further endangering human health.
Chlorine makes the water look good, taste good, and smell good, but what does it do at the cellular level? As a potent poisonous gas it affectionately bonds with water lingering long after killing most bacteria. Chlorine has been implicated (Conn 1991, Muehling 1994) as a potential contributor to cardiovascular heart disease. Chlorine reacts with decaying vegetation to form Chloroform or Trihalomethane (THM) which is a known carcinogen. THM’s are blamed for over 10,000 deaths each year in the USA. Dr. Joseph M. Price, M.D.(1984) authored a book, CORONARIES/CHOLESTEROL/CHLORINE, which presents sterling evidence linking chlorinated water with coronary disease and strokes.
EFFECTIVE, EFFICIENT WATER TREATMENT CHOICES
How clean do you want your drinking water to be? Toxic organic and inorganic contaminates consisting of metals, pesticides, bacteria, virus’, protozoa, and gross alpha and gross beta radioactives +.4 microns have a natural affinity for drinking water.
One system has been shown to remove nearly all the contaminates. Water distillation with carbon filtration reduces toxic contaminates 99.96% or from 550 parts per million to as low as 2 parts per million.
Water distillation, in a class by itself, removes 99% of inorganic minerals from the treated water supply. No other system can match distillation for quality and consistency of removal of harmful inorganic mineral solids.
Other treatment protocols tout limited claims on improving water quality. The highest quality carbon block filtration system reduces contaminants 95.4% or from 550 ppm. to 25 ppm, however it fails to remove the hard water minerals such as calcium and sodium. Thus, if you have hard water of 3 grains [51.3 ppm], the original sample 550 is only reduced to only 76.3 ppm leaving the hard water minerals complete passage through the carbon filter. For every grain of hard water, 17.1 ppm of hard water mineral contaminates will pass through a carbon block or granulated carbon filter system.
Reverse Osmosis (RO), on the average, reduces incoming tap water of 500-ppm contaminants to a range of 20 to 40 ppm. As these units are used, bacteria may form within the filter or they may “clog up” over time allowing pathogenic microbial migration plus reducing the rate of toxic substance removal from your drinking water.”[Colgan M, OPTIMUM SPORTS NUTRITION, Advanced Research Press, New York, NY, 1993; 24.]
As a prime necessity for maximum in metabolic life-support, any compromise from pure drinking water will severely limit the optimal health and the production of energy. When 400 gallons of blood a day flow through organs, body tissues, and working muscles in order to help each of us deal with space in time, the thought of stagnating this process with toxic tap water can be equated with slow-motion suicide. The pure water which enhances life in terms of quality and quantity is no longer a luxury but an absolute necessity!
And sometimes “accidents just happen”!
‘I have been drinking sewage water’
PINEVILLE, Louisiana (CNN) – May 29, 2000
The tap water at Zelma McCoy’s house was the color of mud. Neighbor Christy Chua was bothered by the stench. “Whenever we’d take a shower it really smelled,” she told CNN.
They are among 350 residents of the Walden Point subdivision in Pineville, Louisiana, who unknowingly drank and bathed in water contaminated by sewage for almost three months because city workers mistakenly connected a sewer line to an underground water pipe.
The problem, discovered earlier this month, has since been fixed, says Mayor Clarence Fields.
‘I have been drinking sewage water’
City officials say health risks were minimal because enough chlorine is put in the water supply to kill most bacteria. But residents of this central Louisiana city, who were temporarily ordered to boil their tap water, are disgusted and angry.
“I get physically ill when I think that I have been bathing, drinking and washing my clothes and dishes in sewage water,” Tammy Campbell said.
The filters on Campbell’s washing machine, dishwasher and refrigerator ice-maker became clogged with a white stringy substance, which she later learned was used toilet paper.
The water heaters of other residents filled up with what they originally thought was dirt — but turned out to be excrement.
Water Distillation ” A Superior Purification Method “
Distillation is the most effective method of water purification for the removal of organic, inorganic, radioactive, and biological contaminants. It removes a greater percentage of these harmful impurities than reverse osmosis, filtering, or any other method of purification.
Water Purification Comparison
The green bar represents the amount of impurities removed by distillation. The blue bar
is reverse osmosis, and the purple bar is charcoal filtering.
Typical Contaminants In The Categories Above Are:
Organics: Antibiotics, Fertilizers, Pesticides, Insecticides, Herbicides, Solvents,
Growth Stimulants etc.
Inorganics: Hardness Minerals, Phosphorus, Asbestos, Selenium, Sodium,
Fluorine, Iron, Lead, Mercury, Barium, Nitrates, Copper, Lead, Chlorine, Arsenic.
Biological: Organisms, Bacteria, Viruses, Parasites like Cryptosporidium,
Chlamydia, Giardia Cysts.
Test Results
Distillation Systems have consistently achieved the following proven track records:
Contaminant Elimination between 97% and 99.9% efficiency of all Inorganics tested.
Contaminant Elimination between 95% and 99.9% efficiency of all Organics tested.
Contaminant Elimination 99.9% efficiency of all Biological Organism tested.
Contaminant Elimination between 90% and 99.9% efficiency of all Radioactives tested.
Chronic toxicity is very difficult to assess, especially when more than one contaminant is
involved. There are a variety of specific tests for adverse effects such as reproductive
damage, behavioral effects, cancer, etc. A look at cancer assessment will reveal some
of the problems inherent in long-term toxicity assessments. The fact is, the volume of
research needed to assess risk has just not been done, because no one knows where to
start.
Risk assessment is a complex process which depends on the quality of
scientific information that is available. It is best for assessing acute risks
where effects appear soon after exposure occurs. Uncertainty becomes
greater, the longer the period of time between exposure and appearance of
symptoms. Risks involved in bottled or tap water consumption may never be
fully assessable, largely due to the overwhelming numbers of toxins that are
now seeping into water supplies. Only in acute outbreaks of poisoning do the
dangers of drinking bad water come to light, for a time. The answer to
long-term exposure to contaminants is not more testing, but a
common-sense switch to a known source of pure water, the home distiller.
There are three common questions regarding distilled water that we can answer here.
a) Can using bottled spring or mineral water be a satisfactory method of avoiding contamination?
b) Can water be stored in plastic containers. Does distilled water leach harmful chemicals out of the plastic?
c) Does distilled water leach beneficial minerals from the body?
Many People Think Bottled Water Is the Answer
But Only Distilled Water Provides a Reliable Standard of Purity.
Some Bottled Water Said Not Pure
By H. JOSEF HEBERT
Associated Press 03/30/99
…bottled water in some cases may not be any purer or bacteria-free than water coming from your tap, an environmental group says.
In a four-year test of 103 brands of bottled water, the environmental advocacy group Natural Resources Defense Council found that a third of the tested brands contained bacteria or other chemicals exceeding the industry’s own guidelines or the most stringent state purity standards.
The study being released today acknowledged that most bottled water “is of good quality” but that industry is left largely to self-monitoring
“Bottled water is essentially regulated on the honor system in most states,” says Eric Olson, one of authors of the NRDC report, “Unlike tap water suppliers, bottlers need not disclose to consumers known contaminants in their products.”
The NRDC tested more than 1,000 samples of 103 types of bottled water purchased in California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Texas and the District of Columbia. It found:
_ One-third of the samples exceeded the California standard or the industry’s own purity guidelines, or both, for a chemical or bacterial contaminant.
_ Nearly one in four samples (22 percent) contained levels of cancer-causing synthetic compounds such as arsenic that exceeded the California limit, which is the most stringent.
_ Nearly one in five samples (17 percent) contained levels of bacteria higher than the voluntary industry guidelines. There are no federal mandatory standards.
_ About one in five samples contained industrial chemicals, and some samples contained arsenic, nitrates or other inorganic contaminants. In both cases the levels generally were below state or federal standards.
While bottled water is regulated as a food by the Food and Drug Administration, the NRDC study said it is subject to weaker standards when it comes to a wide range of contaminants than ordinary tap water, which comes under the Environmental Protection Agency.
Bottled water, they said, is required to be tested less frequently for bacteria and chemical contaminants; has no requirement to be disinfected or tested for parasites; and it may contain some fecal coliform,
An earlier 1988 EPA study of bottled water at 25 different bottling plants revealed the following:
1. Discrepancies were found between what the label said, and what was actually in the bottle. Results of chemical analysis revealed trace amounts of the following in virtually every sample: Chlorine, sulfate, nitrate, copper, manganese, lead, iron, zinc, mercury, and arsenic.
2. Bacterial Surveillance was judged inadequate in almost all cases.
3. None of the 25 bottlers ever reported having a complete chemical analysis of their bottled water, nor of their source water either.
4. Bottling was not performed under sanitary conditions.
5. Plastic bottles are shipped in cardboard containers without caps, yet they are filled at the plants without sterilization or even rinsing, and often hand capped.
Additional information pertaining to the value of bottled tap, mineral, spring or filtered water is addressed in the answer to item c) below, regarding the effect of distilled water on minerals but basically, only minerals obtained directly from plants are of value to body cells. Minerals obtained through water or products made from rock or soil will not provide any value to the body. They create obstructions to healthy body function and are the cause of many serious health disorders.
Can water be stored in plastic and still be considered safe?
The answer to this question depends on a number of factors:
(1) kind of plastic
(2) sterility of the container and cap
(3) kind of water being stored
(4) temperature of the bottled water and
(5) care taken after opening.
For long term storage, glass remains the material of choice, but because of the cost, availability, weight and potential for breakage of glass containers, plastic is increasingly being chosen to make storage containers for water and for many other liquids. For larger amounts of water, polycarbonate is generally considered acceptable if glass is not available. Water for consumption should never be stored in a colored container as color is an added impurity. One of the most popular plastics these days for storing smaller amounts of water (gallons, liters and half-liters) is a plastic called polyethylene terephthalate (PET or PETE). Any other plastics for storage of drinking water should be considered suspect.
One of the practical factors that make PET such a good choice for storage containers is that it is so extremely recyclable. Today, 50% of all polyester carpeting manufactured in the U.S. comes from recycled PET bottles. More than 1.5 million pounds are recycled each day! It is easily identified on most containers by the code number 1 enclosed in a recycle triangle. In my opinion, two plastics to avoid for storage of water for consumption are Poly Vinyl Chloride and Polystyrene, which are identified by the code numbers 3 and 5 respectively. They are most likely to add harmful impurities and taste to the contents and usually after only a very short time.
If the plastic does not have an identifying code, there is a simple test that can be used to help determine what kind of plastic it might be. All that is needed is a glass of water and a knife. If you put a small piece of unknown plastic in a glass of water and it sinks, it is highly probable that the plastic is polyvinyl chloride or polystyrene.
Manufacturers of PET have worked to minimize the taste that plastic might leave in water. Mineral water is known to be more susceptible to undesirable tastes, particularly from acetaldehyde, which is found in trace amounts in PET after production. High purity water such as distilled is the best kind of water stored in plastic since it is sterile going in and does not contain minerals to feed stray bacteria that may be present.
If water is stored in a properly sterilized container in a cool or cold temperature away from direct sunlight, the contents should be safe and taste just fine for several months, especially if the contents have been ozonated before being bottled. Once a container is opened and someone has drunk directly from the container, it would be wise to discard the empty container for recycling or put to some non-consumptive use.
Remnants from the mouth of the person drinking directly from the container may introduce harmful microorganisms, lipstick in some cases, and other contaminants. It is very difficult to get such containers sterile enough for reuse, especially if another party will be drinking from the reused container. Reusing such containers for drinking water storage does introduce a certain element of risk and is not generally advisable.
Does distilled water leach minerals from our bodies?
No, in fact, just the opposite has been found to occur in cellular research studies. It is a mistaken belief that drinking pure distilled water reduces valuable minerals from living human tissues.
ORGANIC MINERALS VS. INORGANIC MINERALS
There are two types of minerals, organic and inorganic. Human physiology has a biological affinity for organic minerals. Most minerals for body functions are absorbed from dietary plant foods. A growing plant converts the inorganic minerals from the soils to a useful organic mineral. When an organic mineral (from a plant food) enters the stomach it attaches itself to a specific protein-molecule (a process called chelation) in order to be absorbed, and then it gains access to the tissue sites where it is needed. Once a plant mineral is absorbed within the body, it is utilized as a coenzyme for composing body fluids, forming blood and bone cells, and the maintaining of healthy nerve transmission. (Balch & Balch 1990)
Without a healthy organic mineral balance inside and outside the cells of muscle, blood, and bone substructures, the body will began to spasm, twitch and cramp, eventually deteriorating to a full “rigor complex”, and/or complete failure. Minerals can be likened to the key to your car: it is a small component, but nevertheless an essential one.
INORGANIC MINERALS FROM TAPWATER ARE “BAD NEWS”.
Tap water presents a variety of inorganic minerals which our body has difficulty absorbing. Their presence is suspect in a wide array of degenerative diseases, such as hardening of the arteries, arthritis, kidney stones, gallstones, glaucoma, cataracts, hearing loss, emphysema, diabetes, and obesity. The minerals available, especially in “hard” tap water, are poorly absorbed, or rejected by cellular tissue sites, and, if not evacuated, their presence may cause arterial obstruction, and internal damage. (Dennison 1993, Muehling 1994, Banik 1989)
ORGANIC MINERALS ARE PREFERRED
It is no wonder that the body prefers the richest source of minerals, from organic foods, instead of the hard-to-absorb minerals in tap water. Even if human tissue suddenly developed the ability to absorb inorganic minerals from tap water, it would take an enormous amount of tap water to supply the bare minimal mineral quantities for proper life functions. If (for example) the ample inorganic mineral content of the tap water in Reno, Nevada were modified so that it would convert the daily Calcium requirement (RDA) from its inorganic calcium solutes, one would have to drink 7.4 gallons of their tap water.
DISTILLED WATER ACTUALLY ENHANCES MINERAL ABSORPTION RATES
Yes, and this is correlated to the ability of hard water to conduct electricity. Distilled Water will not conduct electricity (even when 2 parts per million inorganic minerals or less are present). Water with 5 parts inorganic content per million parts water (or more) will conduct electricity, completing a simple circuit and lighting a tester bulb. The higher the inorganic content is in a per million count, the less effectively water transmits organic minerals to tissue sites. Bottled water, tap water, reverse-osmosis filtered water, and carbon-block filtered water (when tested) will conduct electricity, substantiating that these are not the best carriers for mineral-transport and mineral-absorption (Muehling 1994). Tap water in the USA has been shown to contain 19 “inorganic metals of concern”(1994 Safe Water Drinking Act), for which maximum contaminant levels have been set. (Tone 1994) Most American tap water tested falls between the ranges of 350 parts per million to over 1000 parts per million total contaminants. (Colgan 1993)
REPEAT THE QUESTION PLEASE…
Does drinking distilled water leach minerals from the body? No, quite the opposite. If inorganic minerals (and other substances like chlorine, heavy metals, bacteria, etc.) are removed from tap water, by converting it into pure distilled water, the result is improved absorption of all nutrients, including minerals, and improved elimination of wastes at the cellular level.
But don’t just take our word for it, listen to what the experts say…
“The body’s need for minerals is largely met through foods, not drinking water.” American Medical Journal
“The minerals which the human body needs that are in the water are insignificant to those in food…
and anyone simply eating a varied diet, not even a balanced diet, could hardly suffer a mineral
deficiency.” Dr. Henry A. Schroeder, Dartmouth Medical School
“Water hardness (inorganic minerals in solution) is the underlying cause of many, if not all, of the
diseases resulting from poisons in the intestinal tract. These (hard minerals) pass from the intestinal
walls and get into the lymphatic system, which delivers all of its products to the blood, which in turn,
distributes to all parts of the body. This is the cause of much human disease.” Dr. Charles Mayo, world-renowned Mayo Clinic
“The only minerals that the body can utilize are the organic minerals. All other types of minerals are
foreign substances to the body and must be eliminated. Distilled water is the only water that can be
taken into the body without any damage to the tissues.” The Choice is Clear…by Dr. Allen E. Banik
“The greatest damage done by inorganic minerals - plus waxy cholesterol and salt - is to the small
arteries and other blood vessels of the brain (75% water). Hardening of the arteries and calcification
of the blood vessels starts on the day you start taking inorganic chemicals and minerals from the tap
water into you bodies.” The Shocking Truth About Water…by Dr. Paul Bragg, ND.Ph.D .
Much of the preceding information made available through Pure Water Inc.
The only way to be sure your drinking and cooking water is pure and free from dangerous contaminants is by distillation. Whole Life Health Services recommends the One Gallon Countertop Steam Distiller by EcoWater. There are no complicated hook ups. You just pour in a gallon of tap water and the EcoWater distiller returns a gallon of pure distilled water. Similar units are sold by WaterWise and West Bend. Glacier Water offers whole house units.
Dr. Gregory Lowrey
For further information on Dr. Lowrey’s work visit http://www.docloco.com
