Don't Drink The Water! 220 Million Americans Exposed To Unsafe Levels Of Chromium-6

originally posted by: theantediluvian It's not uncommon to read threads about fluoridated water on ATS and similar sites but less commonly discussed is chromium-6 which many of you may have heard of, called by another name — hexavalent chromium — the carcinogen Pacific Gas and Electric Company was poisoning the people of Hinkley, California with. In 1996, the people of Hinkley won a $333 million settlement against the company. Their story was told in the movie Erin Brockovich, named for the legal clerk-cum-environmental activist whose work was instrumental in organizing the residents. 20 years later there are no federal standands for Chromium-6 in tap water. In fact, since 1996 no standards for previously unregulated chemicals have been established by the EPA according to the report below. Now the non-profit Environmental Working Group is delivering some very concerning news.

Spurred by a groundbreaking 2010 EWG investigation that found chromium-6 in the tap water of 31 cities[6] and a Senate hearing prompted by the findings, the EPA ordered local water utilities to begin the first nationwide tests for the unregulated contaminant. From 2013 to 2015, utilities took more than 60,000 samples of drinking water and found chromium-6 in more than 75 percent of them.[7] EWG's analysis of the test data estimates that water supplies serving 218 million Americans – more than two-thirds of the population – contain more chromium-6 than the California scientists deemed safe.

In 2008, a two-year study by the National Toxicology Program found that drinking water with chromium-6, or hexavalent chromium, caused cancer in laboratory rats and mice.[3] Based on this and other animal studies, in 2010, scientists at the respected and influential California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment concluded that ingestion of tiny amounts of chromium-6 can cause cancer in people, a conclusion affirmed by state scientists in New Jersey and North Carolina. The California scientists set a so-called public health goal of 0.02 parts per billion in tap water, the level that would pose negligible risk over a lifetime of consumption.[4] (A part per billion is about a drop of water in an Olympic-size swimming pool.)But in 2014, after aggressive lobbying by industry and water utilities, state regulators adopted a legal limit 500 times the public health goal.[5] It is the only enforceable drinking water standard at either the state or federal level.

Here are some experts weighing in as reported by Newsweek

Sam Delson, with California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, said that at 0.02 ppb, “if a million people were to drink water with this level of chromium-6 for a lifetime of 70 years, we would theoretically expect one additional case of cancer,” Delson says. The cancer risk at 10 ppb “would be 500 in one million.”

Perry Cohn, a retired environmental epidemiologist with the New Jersey Department of Health, who was involved in setting the state’s standard, said the Environmental Working Group’s conclusions were extremely concerning.

“This is quite shocking, to be honest,” said Brockovich of the level of contamination detailed in the report. She has dealt with issues involving chromium-6 for 25 years, ever since her involvement in the Hinkley case, and said that she knew “it was always lurking around,” and not specific to just that town. But she didn’t know it was this widespread. As a known carcinogen, chromium-6 will lead to avoidable cases of cancers when present at levels above those set by New Jersey and California, she added.

The Newsweek article closes with an example of the lengths sinsister industry goons will go to... well, let's call it what it is... help companies save money at the expense of people's suffering and in many cases, their very lives. In 2005, a WSJ expose revealed that Pacific Gas and Electric had hired a "consulting firm" called ChemRisk who in turn paid a renowned expert and the author of a landmark study into chromium-6's affects on human health, Chinese scientist Zhang JianDong, $2000 to assist with data for a second study. Here where things get really disgusting. In 1987, Zhang JianDong published his study proving the links between chromium-6 and cancer. This study was very influential and regulartory bodies based assessments of the risks posed to people's health on the work. What the PG&E "consultants" was to wait till some point after Zhang JianDong had retired and then took his data, altered it to "prove" an opposite conclusion — that there was no link to cancer in humans — and publsihed a paper under the scientist's name without his knowledge in 1997! As with the conslusions of the 1987 study, those of the "new study" found their way into regulatory assessments. ABC, the Guardian, CNN and others are also reporting on the EWG report.