29 Aug 10 False Statements About Water Filters
1. Chlorine is completely safe in our water. False. Disinfection is very important. But it is designed to kill living things. There are several studies showing health risks. We drink it, absorb it through skin, and breathe it in. It’s good to disinfect our water supply. That doesn’t mean we should take it into our bodies.
2. Chloramine is safer than chlorine as a disinfectant because there are fewer disinfection byproducts. False. There are fewer. There is nothing to suggest that they are less dangerous.
3. Fluoride is good for you to drink. False. There are reasonable arguments for use of fluoride in toothpaste. It has never been proven safe to in water, and there are many identified risks. It is bad for people with eczema, thyroid issues, PFIES, and many other illnesses. Harvard Review shows 27 studies strongly indicating that even low levels of fluoride may negatively impact children’s cognitive development.
4. There is no way to filter fluoride from the water. False. There are a few ways.
5. Reverse osmosis is the only way to filter out fluoride (or anything else!) Reverse osmosis is not the only way to filter out anything. Be wary of anyone who makes such a claim.
6. Activated Alumina – one material used to filter fluoride –adds aluminum to the water. False. Activated alumina is an inert natural resin and is not harmful. If it added aluminum, activated alumina would not have been certified by the NSF to release nothing harmful into the water. And it is certified. This is not the highly processed manufactured material. Fluoride is used in manufacturing what we call aluminum.
7. It doesn’t matter if you get trace elements in your water. False. This can also be read as “Mother Nature doesn’t know what she’s doing.” We should be getting more trace elements from our food – but those have diminished greatly, especially if you don’t eat organic foods. Get all the trace elements you can naturally.
8. Drugs in the water are at too low a level to cause health issues. You can’t honestly make that statement; there hasn’t been sufficient study. However, laboratory research has found that small amounts of medication have affected human embryonic kidney cells, human blood cells and breast cancer cells. Pharmaceuticals are designed to alter human physiology in small quantities. How they combine in our water supplies varies all the time. It is unreasonable to assume there are no health risks.
9. Water flow is bad if you use filters. For lots of filters, yes. But you can get kitchen and whole house filters that reduce water flow by a fraction of 1%.
10. The best filters are those that have been certified. Sorry, but certifications don’t provide assurance of top quality. Select a highly-regarded vendor.
Article Submitted by Timothy Hickey, Owner of Friends of Water