Chlorine tap water linked to cancer

New house News Service

Thursday, December 17, 1987

WASHINGTON-Long-term drinking of chlorinated water appears to increase a person's risk of developing bladder cancer as much as 80 percent according to a major new study Scheduled for publication later this month.

The research is regarded as the strongest evidence to date associating bladder cancer to the use of chlorinated drinking water, but its chief investigator warns that the study doesn't conclusively prove such water causes the malignancy.

"This is really the first study that we have strong evidence," Dr. Kenneth Cantor of the federal National Caner Institute said Wednesday.  "But like any epidemiology study, it has problems.  Until a number of (studies) start seeing the same thing we have to be cautious."

The study, which will be published in the Journal of the National  Cancer institute, has raise concerns inside and outside the federal government about how the public will react to the findings.

"The fear I have is a lot of the public will be needlessly panicked, "Dr. Lawrence Garfinkel, the American Cancer Society's vice president for epidemiology and statistics, said in a  telephone interview.

About three out of four American get their drinking water from chlorinated sources, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency.  No one expects local communicates to halt chlorination, which kills disease-causing organisms, because the risks of drinking unchlorinated water are so much greater.

"Chlorination is one of the great modern medical advances of the 20th century." Garfinkel said.  "Without chlorination, we would be back in the 1990s, dropping off from infectious diseases."

Chlorine itself is not believed to be the problem.  Scientists suspect that if the cancer link is true, the actual cause of the bladder cancer is a group of chemicals that from as a result of reactions between the chlorine and natural substances and pollutants in the water.

"If it is chlorine by-products, and we do not know that for a fact, there are ways to reduce them without stopping chlorination," Cantor said.

About 45,000 Americans will be diagnosed with bladder cancer in 1987 and 10.600 will die from the disease this year, according to the American Cancer Society.  It sticks men nearly three times as often as women.

Findings from the new study are based on 1,630 people diagnosed with bladder cancer and 3,027 cancer-free individuals.  They indicate the risk of developing the malignancy is related to the amount of chlorinated water and number of years it was consumed.

For example, people who drank 8cups or more a day of chlorinated water for 40 to 59 years had a 40 percent greater bladder-cancer risk than those who drank less than 3.5 cups a day of unchlorinated well water,

The study was carried out by researchers from NCI and 10 other organizations, including the New Jersey State Department of Health, the Michigan Cancer Foundation and Louisiana State University.

It is the latest in a series of studies since the mid-1970s to suggest a link between chlorinated water and bladder cancer, but the first in which people with the disease and people without were interviewed in depth about their water consumption.

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