Children and the Risks of Contaminated Water

Know the facts about your children’s drinking water

The following excerpt from a report entitled Just Add Water from the Environmental Working Group by Brian A. Cohen, Richard Wiles, Erik D. Olson, and Chris Campbell, should help families recognize the importance of drinking pure, contaminant free water.

Drinking water standards have many other shortcomings beyond their failure to regulate common drinking water contaminants such as radon, Cryptosporidium and pesticides like cyanazine. One of the most serious is the fact that most current federal drinking water standards do not make any specific accommodation for the special risks and heavy consumption of water by infants and young children.
One-year-olds drink more than twice as much water relative to their size as adults. Measured in terms of total fluid intake, an adult would have to drink 35 cans of soda per day to match the drinking habits of the average one-year-old. Because of this, infants and young children are exposed to more water-borne contaminants, relative to their size, than adults. (emphasis mine) This higher exposure combined with the increased vulnerability of infants to many chemical and microbiological contaminants, means infants and young children face increased risks from virtually all contaminants in drinking water, and that current standards almost always do not provide adequate protections for this vulnerable portion of the population.
In October of 1995, the EPA announced a new policy to protect infants and children from exposure to toxic substances. At that time, EPA Administrator Carol Browner noted that the policy:
“…will, for the first time, ensure that we consistently and explicitly evaluate environmental health risks of infants and children in all risk assessments, risk characterizations, and environmental and public health standards that we set for the nation.” (EPA 1995)
In justifying the need for this new policy the EPA cited two National Academy of Sciences studies (NRC 1993, NRC 1994) that called for major policy changes at the EPA to integrate explicit protections for children when evaluating health risks from environmental contaminants.
To date, just two (lead and nitrate) of the more than eighty drinking water standards have been set explicitly to protect infants and children from immediate or long term health risk. No standards have been modified since the EPA policy was announced.
Similarly, drinking water standards do not account for multiple contaminants in a single glass of water. Instead, they are set as though people are exposed to one contaminant at a time, which very often is not the case.

Biological Contaminants

E. coli, giardia and cryptosporidia cysts can all cause gastro-intestinal problems where dehydration from diarrhea and vomiting may be more severe and rapid than in adults. These contaminants can cause death. In 1998, EPA established the Interim Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rule, which strengthens control over microbial contaminants, including the pathogen, Cryptosporidium. By 2002, public water systems using surface water (or ground water under the direct influence of surface water) and serving more than 10,000 people must comply with the rule. States must adopt the new standards by 2001. In some people, particularly children under 5 years of age and the elderly, E. coli 0157:H7 infection can also cause a complication called hemolytic uremic syndrome, in which the red blood cells are destroyed and the kidneys fail. About 2% of infections lead to this complication.
What can you do to protect your children from Pathogens in their drinking water?

Imagine, you and your family can have safe drinking water wherever you are for just pennies and without the need to boil water or use harsh chemicals or drugs. There are many ways to purify water that use harmful chemicals (chlorine) or boiling, but they are either harmful to your health or cumbersome when camping or hiking. NutraSilver weighs 1 ounce and can be carried where ever you go.

NutraSilver is a natural mineral and it is inexpensive (one 30ml bottle contains enough drops to purify approximately 1,200 liters of the most germ-laden water drinking water on earth). NutraSilver is easily supplied and is the favored colloidal silver of millions of people around the world today. Third-world countries use it to purify their drinking water and to wash their fruits and vegetables without fear of microbial infection.

Protect your family, get some NutraSilver now.