Chlorine obsolete?

[MarkP45]

http://www.drweil.com/u/QA/QA361110/

Kind of scary! Seems to be more about chloramine than chlorine.
What's your take on this?

Here's the text from the above link in case the link doesn't work or is moved:


Chlorine used to disinfect swimming pools is a health hazard and may trigger asthma in children. Among adults it has been linked with other health problems including bladder and rectal cancer and may increase the risk for coronary heart disease.

A Belgian study published in the June 2003 issue of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, a British journal, suggested that an irritant released when chlorinated water reacts with urine, sweat or other organic matter from swimmers increases the risk of asthma among children who regularly swim in public pools. The researchers took blood samples from 226 children who regularly swam in indoor pools. They found that the youngsters had accumulated high levels of an irritant called trichloramine, a substance believed to set in motion a process that destroys the cellular barrier that protects the lungs. Other blood samples showed that levels of trichloramine were elevated even among people who merely sat at the side of pools and didn't swim.

Even before these findings were published, I believed that
advertisement

inhaling chlorine fumes that accumulate in and around swimming pools was unhealthy. Swimming in chlorinated water can irritate your eyes and skin, as well as damage your respiratory passages and lungs.

I myself avoid pools and places that smell of chlorine. If you or your children do use chlorinated pools, consider wearing a mask and snorkel to protect your eyes from the irritating effects of the chlorine in the water. After swimming, leave the pool area and inhale fresh air to flush the gas out of your system. Shower quickly and thoroughly to wash it off your skin.

Sunblock won't help to protect you or your children against the effects of chlorine, but you can make a difference by lobbying local officials and pool managers to replace chlorine in public pools with safer, more modern disinfection methods. I use a silver-copper ion generator in my own pool that works very well. Other alternatives are available and worth exploring. Chlorine disinfection of water is obsolete.

[duraleigh]

Yeah, it's really bad stuff....That's why those guys in the black helicopters put it in OUR DRINKING WATER!!

Personally, I'm headed for the remote wilderness where I can drink and bathe in bacteria infested streams.

Seriously, this subject has been discussed at length on the forum and to comment on the articles accuracy (or believeability) would be beating a dead horse.

[hulla]

If you test your drinking water, you might find a lot of chloramines in there. That is what many cities use to disinfect the water.

[dawndenise]

Remember that this study was related to swimmers who "regularly swam in INDOOR pools."

[DavidD]

Dr Andrew Weil goes on to say “I use a silver-copper ion generator in my own pool that works very well. Other alternatives are available and worth exploring."

Smerk, my “take” is this guy is an idiot. I mean for a doctor to make the statement that insinuates a silver-copper ion generator could possibly properly sanitize a public, indoor pool effectively shows what kind of intellectual he really is. How healthy is Copper? The Alternatives? I understand the concerns about what should have been stated Poorly Ventilated Indoor Public Swimming Pools and how it can lead to respiratory problems and/or irritate problems already present. Makes perfect sense. Ben "Pool Doc" recently commented on this same subject here http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthread.php?t=3920&page=2. This bozo’s claims still do not alarm me in the slightest since all of the real facts indicate Chlorine is still by far the safest way to sanitize my pool. Why blame chlorine? Being in the "Building" industry, I blame the Architect, HVAC Engineer and the facility's owner for inadequate ventilation.

Dave

[ChuckD]

And having been trained as an architect and worked in the building industry I usually blame 1) the engineer and 2) the builder. :D

But seriously, I think you're being too harsh on Weil. I've read a lot of his stuff and I think he has something valuable to offer for those of us who understand the incestuous relationship between the medical profession and the pharmaceutical industry.

True enough, he's an idealist. And for the same reasons I take Consumer Reports' reviews of bicycles and stereo equipment with large doses of salt, so do I take Weil's opinion on safely keeping pools clean. Some topics require a specialist to adequately review.

But ease up on him, eh? He's most certainly got something valuable to offer on the subject of health.

C.

[waterbear]

And having been trained as an architect and worked in the building industry I usually blame 1) the engineer and 2) the builder. :D

But seriously, I think you're being too harsh on Weil. I've read a lot of his stuff and I think he has something valuable to offer for those of us who understand the incestuous relationship between the medical profession and the pharmaceutical industry.

True enough, he's an idealist. And for the same reasons I take Consumer Reports' reviews of bicycles and stereo equipment with large doses of salt, so do I take Weil's opinion on safely keeping pools clean. Some topics require a specialist to adequately review.

But ease up on him, eh? He's most certainly got something valuable to offer on the subject of health.

C. Well, the government of Australia certainly disagrees with him. Last year they passed legislation requirine ALL copper/silver systems to be used with NORMAL and not reduced chlorination levels in light of new research on kill times of water borne illness producing organisms! If only our own EPA was so diligent!

[DavidD]

But seriously, I think you're being too harsh on Weil. I've read a lot of his stuff and I think he has something valuable to offer for those of us who understand the incestuous relationship between the medical profession and the pharmaceutical industry....


Chuck,

That's kind of my point. Dr. Weil seams to have some good advice to offer and some very realistic views yet for him to make such an asinine blanket statement such as this truly seams idiotic. Surely you agree or you wouldn't be using chlorine yourself. I don't necessarily agree with all of his opinions, however I haven't seen any other blatantly ignorant (once again, meant as Webster's defines) remarks in the little bit of scanning of his website that I've done. Maybe there are others though and I just didn't dig deep enough. Hopefully, being a M.D., Dr. Weil realizes the proven fact that there must be some sort of residual sanitation in a public swimming pool, indoors or out. I agree with his concerns over the dangers he presented however I feel his concerns should have been directed more towards the ventilation and or the cleanliness of the water in these public facilities. Seems to me that If they actually had a higher residual FC, there very well might have been less of a problem, but hey, I'm no doctor. It is yet another case of "The sky is falling" syndrome or "lets cut off our nose to spite our face." The man seams like an intelligent enough individual who hopefully had a momentary lapse of judgment. Like Dr. Weil, I would love to find a sanitizer that is "healthier" than chlorine. The fact is, there just isn't any such thing when all of the real world facts are considered.
Now as far as an Architect blaming someone else, well that seems about right!:p :)

Dave

[day1]

I think swimming in 2-5ppm chlorine is much safer than not. I also think Weil means well, he's just such a naturalist it doesn't surprise me at all that he's against the 'evils' of chlorine. Now if your swimming in a shocked pool w/ppm up in the double-digits, it may cause some folks problems. I'd be interested in knowing to what extent we get absorption thru our skin for 1 hr/2 hrs. etc. at certain concentrations. Probably very small #'s.

[bradjo]

Speaking of training Dr. Weil's field of expertise is in Integrative Medicine with some secondary knowledge of community health (which doesn't really cover water treatment more than passing mention).

So I really wouldn't give his opinion about pools any more weight than I'd give anyone else's with a good college education who did some research while putting in their own pool.

If I were looking for definitive water treatment information I'd look for a publication by a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering with a subspecialty in Water. Those are hard to find so I have to listen to you guys!! LOL
Jo

[chem geek]

The specific irritant that caused the problem, according to the article, was trichloramine (NCl3) which is the smelliest of the chloramines. The chloramine that is put into drinking water for disinfection is monochloramine (NH2Cl) and has much less of an odor and is much less hazardous. These chloramines collectively are what are measured as "Combined Chlorine" in your chlorine test kit (along with chlorinated organics) so these indoor pools were not regularly maintaining their pools properly and they probably had poor air circulation as well.

My guess is that they let the chlorine levels get too low relative to bather demand (i.e. they didn't keep the chlorine to ammonia ratio high). Also, for indoor pools it would be good to use a non-chlorine shock (monopersulfate, peroxymonopersulfate or MPS -- Dow trade name Oxone) to oxidize organics and ammonia before chlorine has a chance to produce chloramines. At least that's the theory. From what I've been told, indoor pools are a bear anyway you look at it.

Richard