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World Facing 'Arsenic Timebomb'
About 140 million people, mainly in developing countries, are being poisoned by arsenic in their drinking water, researchers believe.
Speaking at the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) annual meeting in London, scientists said this will lead to higher rates of cancer in the future.
South and East Asia account for more than half of the known cases globally.
Eating large amounts of rice grown in affected areas could also be a health risk, scientists said.
"It's a global problem, present in 70 countries, probably more," said Peter Ravenscroft, a research associate in geography with Cambridge University.
"If you work on drinking water standards used in Europe and North America, then you see that about 140 million people around the world are above those levels and at risk."
Testing time
Arsenic consumption leads to higher rates of some cancers, including tumours of the lung, bladder and skin, and other lung conditions. Some of these effects show up decades after the first exposure.
"In the long term, one in every 10 people with high concentrations of arsenic in their water will die from it," observed Allan Smith from the University of California at Berkeley.
"This is the highest known increase in mortality from any environmental exposure."
The international response, he said, is not what the scale of the problem merits.
"I don't know of one government agency which has given this the priority it deserves," he commented.
The first signs that arsenic-contaminated water might be a major health issue emerged in the 1980s, with the documentation of poisoned communities in Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal.
In order to avoid drinking surface water, which can be contaminated with bacteria causing diarrhoea and other diseases, aid agencies had been promoting the digging of wells, not suspecting that well water would emerge with elevated levels of arsenic.
The metal is present naturally in soil, and leaches into groundwater, with bacteria thought to play a role.
Since then, large-scale contamination has been found in other Asian countries such as China, Cambodia and Vietnam, in South America and Africa.
It is less of a problem in North America and Europe where most water is provided by utilities. However, some private wells in the UK may not be tested and could present a problem, Mr Ravenscroft said.
Problems abroad
Once the threat has been identified, there are remedies, such as as digging deeper wells, purification, and identifying safe surface water supplies.
As a matter of priority, scientists at the RGS meeting said, governments should test all wells in order to assess the threat to communities.
"Africa, for example, is probably affected less than other continents, but so little is known that we would recommend widespread testing," said Peter Ravenscroft.
His Cambridge team has developed computer models aimed at predicting which regions might have the highest risks, taking into account factors such as geology and climate.
"We have assessments of the Ganges and Brahmaputra river basins, for example, and then we look for similar basins elsewhere.
"There are similar areas in Indonesia and the Philippines, and very little evidence of tests; yet where there has been some testing, in (the Indonesian province of) Aceh for example, signs of arsenic turned up."
Asian countries use water for agriculture as well as drinking, and this too can be a source of arsenic poisoning.
Rice is usually grown in paddy fields, often flooded with water from the same wells. Arsenic is drawn up into the grains which are used for food.
Andrew Meharg from Aberdeen University has shown that arsenic transfers from soil to rice about 10 times more efficiently than to other grain crops.
This is clearly a problem in countries such as Bangladesh where rice is the staple food, and Professor Meharg believes it could be an issue even in the UK among communities which eat rice frequently.
"The average (British) person eats about 10g to 16g of rice per day, but members of the UK Bangladeshi community for example might eat 300g per day," he said.
The UK's Food Standards Agency is currently assessing whether this level of consumption carries any risk.
© BBC MMVII
7 Comments so far
Show AllInteresting, the Chinese are 'eating our lunch' in the balance of trade racket and now we 'b!tch' about everything that is wrong with Chinese products: Lead in their paint?
Meanwhile, the lead and arsenic in the American water supply threatens the entire population because Bush has placed anti-environmental lawyers and lobbyist into key positions at the EPA - and of-course, no one is complaing about what 'really' ails America = The Bush crime syndicate!
TheAZCowBoy
Tombstone, AZ.
I agree with AZCowboy, but the blame goes frther back and Bush is just upholding a long standing tradition of our corporate governemnt. Whether it was Nixon,Ford,Carter Reagan,Bush,Clinton or l'il Bush makes no realy difference.
We are being poisoned systematically with the hopes that we will not live long enough to collect our pensions(for those who still have them) or SSecurity.
In developing African nations, racism inherent in our western cultures has brought about the most devastating conditions to the hated brown skinned peoples. From Diamond mining to genocide, from poisoning to AIDS(I am one opf the people who wholeheartedly believe that AIDS is biological warfare of the most insidious kind-no real proof, but all one needs to do is examine what we have done in the past) to make a connection.
I wish that more people in this country would take a minute out of their daily struggle for survival to think about these things. Perhaps they mightrealize that our troubles here are 100% connected to what is going on in Africa and elsewhere
I had a friend who grew up in the gold mining area of Nevada. She died of arsenic poisoned water. When she went to the doctor, he treated her for diabetes even though she tested for too much arsenic in her system. I am happy that finally the denial is being brought out to the light.
I think the arsenic is in the water in the usa too. My mom was healthy until she moved to north carolina. She had this slimmy looking well water in her new home. She bathed and drank the sludge. She died of malignant melanoma a couple of years later.
Water coming from a facility may be filtered but they do have allowable limits.
Also, lots of pharmacuticals floating around. Too bad recycling is not perfected. But then again we cannot allow the pharmacuticals to loose money.
North Carolina has a lot of CAFO's (concentrated animal feeding operations). The industrial waste from the operations is often used to fertilize pastures and fields. In addition to providing nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium, the recycled manures contain concentrations of zinc, copper, and arsenic which can contaminate ground water. Arsenic compounds are used extensively in poultry operations to control the intestinal parasites that flourish in the crowded 'barns'.
This is a pending problem anywhere CAFO's are allowed to operate. Very few state agencies across the nation take the issue seriously. It is time for people to educate themselves about the problem and to take some sort of action to help focus attention before it becomes too late.
SINNERJIZM
i agree with you on the aids point. and once saw a documentary where an ex military colnel stated that in the 70's the gov gave the military ex amount of money to fashion a virus that would be resistant to any drugs/medicines etc. why would he say that if it wasn't true??? what would he gain???
The problem of arsenic in drinking water can be tackled by harvesting rainwater - a strategy routinely advocated in permaculture.
Arsenic also affects agriculture in two ways: arsenic is drawn into plants contaminating the plant; and arsenic is drawn up instead of phosphorus, which is a major limiting factor in plant growth. The result is a plant that has a degree of toxicity and is stunted due to lack of phosphorus. When groundwater irrigation is utilised in areas with arsenic contamination, these problems appear.
The use of swales, or water-harvesting ditches on contour, is the most cost effective type of earthworks for capturing water. It also reduces or eliminates the need for groundwater irrigation.
Additionally, endomycorrhyzal fungi can be employed to help alleviate the arsenic problem. Plants with the endomycorrhyzal fungi Glomus mosseae have been show to reduce plant uptake of arsenic and increase the uptake of phosphorus.