What will happen if no action is taken to solve or reverse our global water crisis?
The following statements indicate that arsenic can enter the body through many routes. Drinking water is only one of the ways. However, purifying water used in irrigation can safeguard the food supply and our animal stocks.
“The availability of safe drinking water is one of the foundational components of development, and of sustaining the stability and progress of industrialized nations. Without it, productive enterprise and socio-economic advancement are simply not possible. Yet, globally, we are facing rapid deterioration in the quality and quantity of our raw water supplies, undermining advancements in public health and threatening to throttle the pace of growth and freedom in westernized and developing nations alike. Contamination of household water, whether from infectious or environmental harmful agents, desperately needs technologically sound, innovative, practical solutions that are accessible, and within the reach of all people, even in the lower strata of the broad, flat economic pyramid that characterizes poorer countries around the world. Unless we address these needs, lack of safe water will inevitably impose severe limitations on the prospects for self-improvement at personal and population levels, with dire consequences for humankind over the coming decades.”
- Jeff Williams, Ph. D., Chief Technical Officer, HaloSource Incorporated, Bothell, WA, USA
“If people are made to realize the dangers of drinking arsenic-contaminated water, they will take care of their own safety.”
- Dipankar Charkraborti, Environmental Scientist, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India
“Arsenic can cause lung disease and cancers, even long after people stop drinking contaminated water. What is new is, the extent of arsenic pollution is much bigger than people realized. There is a very important connection between arsenic in water and arsenic in food, especially where people grow irrigated crops.”
- Peter Ravenscroft, Researcher, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
“The arsenic hazard in Bangladesh villagers now appeared as a ‘real disaster', affecting thousands physically, physiologically, mentally and economically; it is intensifying malnutrition, poverty and destitution among the already poor villagers. The future of the Bangladesh villages are jeopardized.”
- Professor I. Zuberi, Rajshai, University, Bangladesh, India
“Work by CRC CARE scientists has revealed that not only drinking the water is dangerous. Rice and vegetables may also take up arsenic when grown in contaminated water and small amounts may pass through the food chain via meat and milk to people. Rice or vegetables boiled in the contaminated water can also take up arsenic during the cooking process. In Bangladesh, arsenic levels in rice can range as high as 1770 micrograms per kilo and in vegetables as high as 3990 micrograms. A level of 1000 micrograms per day is enough to produce the skin lesions of arsenicosis within a few years. Also, foodstuffs imported into the United Kingdom from Bangladesh were found to contain up to 540 micrograms per kilo of arsenic."
- Professor Ravi Naidu & Dr. Mohammad Rahman, CRC CARE, Salisbury, Australia
“Research showed that in northern Chile, after many years, one in 10 people exposed to ground water naturally contaminated with high concentrations of arsenic die as a result of that exposure. If prompt action isn’t taken in India and Bangladesh, in the long term they’ll have similar mortality.”
- Dr. Allan Smith, Professor of Epidemiology, UC Berkeley School of Public Health, Berkeley, CA, USA
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