And the winner is . . .

Wait just a sec.

I know ya’ll are eager to find out who won the Royal Berkey System with PF2 Fluoride Filters, but I have just a couple of things to get out of the way first. The hardest thing about announcing a winner is that after reading your comments I wanted ALL of you to win.

If I were a crunchy version of Oprah that would totally happen, but unfortunately I am a few billion short. Good news, though! The Berkey Guy has set up a page with a special deal exclusively for Mommypotamus readers: A water bottle/filter combo for $19.99 with free shipping! Woohoo! If it filtered fluoride it would be just about perfect, but it’s awesome as it is (and BPA free, too, of course!).

The Sport Berkey Portable Water Purifier Eliminates or Reduces up to 99.9% of:

• Unpleasant taste and odors, cloudiness, silt, sediment and chlorine.
• Toxic chemicals: Trihalomethanes, VOCs, detergents, pesticides, etc.
• Harmful microscopic pathogens: Cryptosporidium, Giardia, E-coli 99.99999% and other pathogenic bacteria.
• Heavy metals: Aluminum, Cadmium, Chromium, Copper, Lead, and Mercury.
• Radiologicals: Radon 222

Also, if filtering fluoride is really important to you the Berkey Light may not be as pricey as you think. No, I don’t get a commission for saying that.

To learn about future specials only available to subscribers, make sure to sign up for his newsletter while you’re there. Future giveaways on other sites will be posted on his Facebook page, so go “Like” him!

Just one more thing: Stay tuned for a follow-up post on shower/bath solutions with another GIVEAWAY!!!

And, now, it’s time to congratulate Jeanne who said “My dad has one of these! He swears by it. I would excavate some counter space for this if I win!I hate, hate, hate how many plastic bottles we still generate. But hate the taste of our tap water more.”

You won the Royal Berkey with fluoride filters! Please email me your address and your shiny new purifier will arrive soon!

Thanks for making this giveaway possible, Berkey Guy!

Similar Posts:

• Your Water Filter Can’t Stop Fluoride… But It Should
• Chlorine and CANCER
• Medication By Hydration

We drink, bathe and swim in it. We hardly ever think about it. What is it? Basically . . . bleach.

The addition of chlorine to our drinking water began in the late 1800s and became the standard in water treatment by 1904. For the most part, it remains the standard today. We do not use chlorine because it is the safest or even the most effective means of disinfection, we use it because it is the cheapest. In spite of all our technological advances, we essentially still pour bleach in our water before we drink it. The long-term effects of chlorinated drinking water are just now being recognized.

According to the U.S. Council Of Environmental Quality, “Cancer risk among people drinking chlorinated water is 93% higher than among those whose water does not contain chlorine.”

Dangers and Health Side Effects of Chlorine

Chlorine and Cancer

Chlorine is usually thought of as a relatively safe disinfectant, but it’s not. When “chlorine is added to our water, it combines with other natural compounds to form Trihalomethanes (chlorination byproducts), or THMs. These chlorine byproducts trigger the production of free radicals in the body, causing cell damage, and are highly carcinogenic. According to the Environmental Defense Fund, ‘Although concentrations of these carcinogens (THMs) are low, it is precisely these low levels that cancer scientists believe are responsible for the majority of human cancers in the United States.”¹

One of the byproducts of chlorine, dioxin, has been found by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to be 300,000 times more potent as a carcinogen than DDT. This is the same chemical that was used in an assassination attempt on Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko. The attempt failed, but ingesting the poison resulted in permanent disfigurement and chronic health problems. The President was dosed ONE TIME during dinner with General Igor Smeshko, causing acute toxicity.

Tasteless but highly toxic, the dioxin Yushchenko ingested was administered in a dose probably less than 1 mg. A drop in a bowl of soup would have gone undetected, said Prodanchuk.

The Poisoning of Ukraine’s President

Although dioxin is present in much smaller concentrations in tap water, the problem is that it’s almost impossible for our bodies to break it down so it just stays with us. As it accumulates in our systems it can cause “cancer, organ disease, miscarriages, menstrual ailments, low birth weight, abnormal hair growth or a severe form of acne called chloracne.”²

Unfortunately, that’s just one byproduct. Other compounds in chlorinated water have been linked to heart disease, adrenal fatigue, asthma and allergies.

Time To Change Our Ways

I hope that more U.S. cities will begin using ozone to purify our water. Although most filters remove chlorine, few claim to effectively remove byproducts such as dioxin. Since ozone is chemical free and low-cost it makes sense to switch and avoid byproducts altogether. Currently about 350 U.S.  cities have ozone treatment plants. Mine, however, does not.

Okay, enough with the scary stuff. Tomorrow is solution day!!!

Next Post in this Series: Mommypotamus’ Favorite Water Filter!

Similar Posts:

• Your Water Filter Can’t Stop Fluoride… But It Should
• Medication By Hydration
• Berkey Giveaway Winner!

Prozac With Your Tea?

Forget Astra Zeneca, have you heard about the new plan to help people afford their medications? Thanks to them I’m now on prozac, premarin, lopid, equanil, midol extended relief, bactrim, and proloprim. It’s great, really, after you get over the nausea/headaches/excessive bloating/ joint pain and risk of death stuff. Just minor inconveniences. The best part? I doesn’t even have a copay. They give it away in the water now!!!

Just kidding. Welcome to day two of water week. If you missed yesterday my mission is to cover three major areas of concern regarding tap water quality and then to share the best solutions I know of. Yesterday we talked about fluoride, today is pharmaceuticals. Tomorrow I’ll cover the rest of the scary stuff and then we’ll move on to solutions, promise!

In a study conducted by the Southern Nevada Water Authority, researchers found that drinking water is often laced with a wide variety of pharmaceuticals and hormonally active chemicals.

The 11 most frequently detected compounds were:

• Atenolol, a beta-blocker used to treat cardiovascular disease
• Atrazine, an organic herbicide banned in the European Union which has been implicated in the decline of fish stocks and in changes in animal behavior
• Carbamazepine, a mood-stabilizing drug used to treat bipolar disorder
• Estrone, an estrogen hormone secreted by the ovaries and blamed for causing gender changes in fish
• Gemfibrozil, an anti-cholesterol drug
• Meprobamate, a tranquilizer used in psychiatric treatment
• Naproxen, a painkiller and anti-inflammatory linked to increases in asthma incidence
• Phenytoin, an anticonvulsant used to treat epilepsy
• Sulfamethoxazole, an antibiotic
• TCEP, a reducing agent used in molecular biology
• Trimethoprim, another antibiotic

The study then adds that the concentrations found were too small to cause any harm to us or the environment. If that’s true, then what’s the deal with transexual fish scaring biological research associates? And what about those poor hermaphroditic frogs found near human waterways? Yes, I’m sure our sons will be just fine with these, ahem, “acceptable levels” of estrogen being pumped into their developing bodies everyday.

Yeah right. Pharmaceuticals are reshaping our environment and our bodies in unintended ways.

[Freshwater] habitats around the world have been found contaminated with the synthetic estrogen used in contraceptive pills, ethynylestradiol. While concentrations are generally found around .5 nanograms per liter, concentrations as high as several hundred nanograms per liter have been reported, as well.A large body of evidence has connected this contamination with excess feminization in fish.

In one study, U.S. and Canadian government scientists purposely contaminated an experimental lake in Ontario with around 5 nanograms per liter of ethynyl estradiol, and studied the effects on the lake’s fathead minnow population, a common species that fish like lake trout and northern pike feed on. Minnows normally become sexually mature at two years of age and enjoy a single mating season before perishing.

Exposed to ethynyl estradiol, the male minnows’ testicular development was arrested and they started making early-stage eggs instead. That year’s mating season was disastrous. Within two years, the minnow population crashed.

Yale Environment 360 Online Magazine (emphasis mine)

Although ecotoxicologists are beginning to draw attention to this issue, it will most likely be a long time before public policy demands that we screen for and remove these compounds. In the meantime, little research has been done on how effective current filtration systems are at removing them. However, I did run across ONE study that indicated a solution, which I’ll be sharing on Thursday. Hang in there, just one more to go!

Next Post in this Series: Chlorine & Cancer

Similar Posts:

• Chlorine and CANCER
• Your Water Filter Can’t Stop Fluoride… But It Should
• Berkey Giveaway Winner!

Photo Credit Darwin Bell on Flickr

Welcome to Water Week!

Question: Is there any research regarding the water filter jugs by BRITA? I drink a lot of water and use BRITA instead of bottled water. I and my son drink it, cook on it, soak in it, and sometimes wash with it. I wonder if it is safe. Thanks!!!

Anna D

Wow, Anna, you sure know how to ask a loaded question! Rather than skimp on answering such an important question, I’ve officially declared this “Water Week”. I’ll be covering what I consider to be the three biggest concerns with tap water as well as offering the best solutions I know. Let’s get started!

On the surface tap water seems pretty safe. We’ve all consumed it and we’re still kicking, right? Um, no. I mean YES we’re still kicking, but NO it’s not safe. In reading over 300 pages of research for this post, one fact became unavoidably certain: The harmful effects of tap water may occur gradually, but they are very real.

H2O: Simply . . . complicated.

So, what exactly is in a glass of tap water? Hydrogen and oxygen, of course. But there are also living organisms like bacteria and parasites, the chemicals we use to kill those organisms, chemicals from environmental pollution and pharmaceutical drugs. And then there are the chemicals we add for no good reason, like fluoride.

Fluoride = toxic (p.s. toxic is baaaaad)

If you’ve ever brushed with fluoride toothpaste you may have noticed this label:

Now, I read this label for YEARS and didn’t think anything of it. In a society that has warnings like:

• “Remove child before folding” – On a child car safety seat
• “Do not eat toner” – Laser printer manufacturer Ricoh
• “Do not drive with sunshield in place.” — On a cardboard sunshield that keeps the sun off the dashboard.
• “May irritate eyes.” — On a can of self-defense pepper spray.
• “Caution: Hot beverages are hot!” — On a coffee cup.
• “Do not use for drying pets.” — In the manual for a microwave oven.
• “Warning: May cause drowsiness.” — On a bottle of Nytol, a brand of sleeping pills.

. . . how are we supposed to take cautionary labels seriously!?!?!

The sad fact is, in this case we really should. In The Flouride Deception, investigative reporter Christopher Bryson presents compelling evidence that water fluoridation results in lowered IQ, weakened bones, thyroid suppression and lowered metabolic function. It also kills our immune systems first line of defense – the beneficial bacteria in our guts.

Some will say “I thought fluoride prevented cavities . . . what do you mean it damages bones?“ It’s ironic, but although fluoride thickens bones studies show it actually makes them more fragile by displacing bone mineral. Oh, and did you know that prior to 1938 fluoride was soley sold as RAT POISON??? No, that’s not disturbing AT ALL.

Additional research indicates it could cause Alzheimer’s:

Many municipal water supplies are treated with both alum (aluminum sulfate) and fluoride. These two chemicals combine with each other easily in the blood to form aluminum fluoride. Although elemental aluminum can not pass the blood-brain barrier, some compounds such as aluminum fluoride do. Aluminum fluoride is very poorly excreted in the urine. It is poisonous to the kidneys. Aluminum salts in the brain lead to Alzheimer’s Disease.

Source: Health Science on Flouride Toxicity

AND Down’s Syndrome

Studies dating back to the 1950s have shown links between Down’s Syndrome and natural fluoridation. Ionel Rapaport also showed how the age of women bearing Down’s Syndrome children decreased in direct relation to the increase of fluoride in the water supply. The more fluoride that was in the water, the younger the age of the women bearing Down’s Syndrome children.

Hidden Danger In Your Drinking Water and Toothpaste

Nations in Western Europe that stopped fluoridating their water have not seen an increase in dental cavities, so why aren’t we seeing this dangerous compound pulled from products? Two reasons.

First, fluoride is an industrial byproduct. Right now companies are able to unload this stuff into public water supplies for a profit instead of being required to dispose of it as hazardous waste.

By selling the fluoride byproducts for this purpose, companies avoid  the huge cost of disposing of these chemicals in the environment safely, and according to regulation. Back in the 1930’s, a band of industrial corporations – including Monsanto, U.S. Steel, Union Carbide, and Aluminum Company of America (ALCOA),  the leading producer of aluminum – had been cheaply disposing of their fluoride byproducts into the environment for years. This changed when their toxic waste became the target of negative press in the local news. A 1933 toxicology report by the USDA had warned of fluoride’s toxicity, singling out the aluminum industry as the biggest culprit.

The Fluoride Fraud

The second reason is liability. Can you imagine the class action lawsuits that would inevitably be brought against Colgate and other major corporations if fluoride is officially recognized as a health and environmental hazard? The research has been available for fifty years. Not to the public, mind you, but recently declassified Manhattan Project documents confirm that researchers and industry leaders knew fluoride was dangerous.

I know this sounds crazy and maybe a little to heavy on the conspiracy theory side, but it’s not like we haven’t seen this before. Remember when the tobacco industry refused to acknowledge that cigarettes cause cancer? The brilliant PR mind behind that campaign was Sigmund Freud’s nephew, Edward Bernays. Guess who else was a client of Bernays? The fluoride industry! They know. They’re liable. One need not be a conspiracy theorist to track the almighty dollar on this one.

What You Can Do

Most home filters do not remove fluoride from water. In fact, if you bought it at any local retail store, you can be pretty sure it doesn’t. There ARE some options, though, which I’ll be covering in an upcoming post. In the meantime, here are some steps you can take to reduce your exposure.

So, the answer to your question, Anna: in my opinion,  Brita, Pur and most other filters do not filter water to a safe level. How’s that for long-winded?

What do you think? Is fluoride a concern for your family?

Recommended Reading:

Next Post In This Series: Medication By Hydration

Similar Posts:

• Berkey Giveaway Winner!
• Medication By Hydration
• Chlorine and CANCER