Monday, September 19, 2011

Dr.Oz! You should be talking about Arsenic in Drinking Water. Doctors do recommend drinking 8 full glasses of water a day.

By Antonio Inojal
Application Engineer, AdEdge Water Technologies, LLC

NBC’s Medical Expert, Dr. Oz, announced that he and his staff did an extensive study on the leading brands of apple juice, and the results were staggering. According to the study, some countries which manufacture apple juice use a pesticide that contains arsenic, a metal that can cause cancer.

Concern about arsenic in apple juice? I think this is a good faith effort (by Dr. Oz) to raise awareness about something that will have INSIGNIFICANT consequences (levels of arsenic in apple juice) in the long run. You can already read comments about moms distrusting trusted brand names such as Gerber over this issue. The EPA’s MCL for arsenic in drinking water is based on the capacity of the metal (due to its toxicity) to result in 1 death over a million inhabitants caused by the daily consumption of 2 liters of water for 70 years (taking the average person being 70 Kg). Keep in mind that a baby drinks liquid in proportion to his/her own body weight. Unless you completely substitute apple juice for water in your daily diet, I personally don’t think anyone consumes 2 liters of apple juice every day. The FDA has already sent their own letter to Dr. Oz where they claim that their own tests of the same batches of apple juice revealed much lower inorganic arsenic content than those tested by the lab contracted by Dr. Oz.

Arsenic in drinking water on the other hand is a much more prominent issue here in the U.S. and around the World.  There are water systems in the U.S., including our Native American Nations in the western U.S. , that deliver water that exceeds the EPA MCL of 10/ ppb.   Awareness of the effects of excessive   arsenic in drinking water among consumers is increasing across the country. Companies such as ours, AdEdge Water Technologies provides highly effective treatment solutions to both municipal and residential customers for excessive  arsenic levels in drinking water.  


Perhaps an appropriate follow-up story from Dr. Oz would be to address the more common issue of arsenic in drinking water that consumers' in some areas of the country face.