This new chemical is bad news and most filters don't remove it

Let me ask you… would you be concerned about getting cancer, fetal damage, genetic damage, digestive problems, spleen damage, liver damage, kidney damage, and lowered immunity from drinking water? Of course you would! Well, it’s time to jack up your concern to ultra-high levels because there’s a new chemical kid on the block that many municipalities are dumping into your water supply in order to “purify” the water you drink… and your water filter – the one you spent hundreds of dollars for – may not remove this new kid.

While I admit creating safe drinking water has never been a simple matter, least of all today in our toxic, highly-chemicalized world, modern water purification methodologies seem to be getting themselves deeper and deeper in trouble in seeking out inexpensive ways to solve the problem. Chlorine, the inexpensive chemical of choice of the US public water department for decades, is now being replaced in many areas with another inexpensive chemical, Chloramine. 

It seems that the danger of the carcinogenic by-products that chlorine leaves behind once it has evaporated, such as trihalomethanes, have finally registered enough concern with the government that they’re trying to reduce the amount of chlorine used in our water; but now there is concern that this smaller amount isn’t enough to do the job everywhere.

This leads us to the new kid on the water block, chloramine, which has been chosen in many parts of America as a replacement for chlorine where the water treatment problem is bigger than the new lower guidelines of chlorine can handle. What water treatment plants in America like about chloramine is that you can use a very small amount as it doesn’t evaporate like chlorine and it sticks around to do the job; however, they’re willing to overlook the fact that chloramine, a mixture of Chlorine and Ammonia, even in small amounts is still a dangerous nerve gas and new research indicates that it has a propensity to create even more dangerous by-products than chlorine, that may be even more carcinogenic.

A study conducted by the University of Illinois demonstrates that one of the by-products of the chloramination, known as iodoacids (EYE-O-doe-acids), may be the most toxic ever found in drinking water. The concern is not only the genetic damage it can cause in mammals (including humans) that drink chloraminated water, but also the fact that these dangerous chemicals are being released back into the environment where fish, wildlife, and the food chain may be adversely affected.

What we know for sure about chloramines demonstrates that they are both reactive and persistent — not only in water, but also in human tissue. One study demonstrated that after 5 days, over 95% of a single dose of chloramine administered to laboratory rats was still concentrated in tissues including plasma, blood, skin, packed cells, kidney, nerves, testes, thymus gland, spleen, liver, muscle tissue, bone marrow, etc.We now know that chlorination has contributed greatly to heart disease, cancer, and other serious health issues in our human population. There is no reason to believe that chloramination will prove to be less troublesome. In fact, just the opposite is likely.Notwithstanding this information, utility companies around the country routinely misinform their customers, telling them that chloramines are effectively neutralized by stomach acids before they can reach the blood.And if things weren’t bad enough, chloramine, unlike chlorine, is extremely difficult to remove from water. It will go right through most filter systems like carbon block and ceramics, and reverse-osmosis and distillers.

But there is hope; Catalytic Activated Carbon! More on this technology and how you can get it in a future post.