LinkC wrote:
I really would like to see the danger-pointing figures you alluded to, tho.
LinkC, you know you're not going to fill your tank with straight chlorox because you would probably damage your lungs.
There are two methods of injury here. The first is short-term or 'acute' injury - such as burnt lung tissue from breathing straight chlorine gas.
http://www.informahealthcare.com/doi/ab ... 0802007841
The second is long-term low-level or 'chronic' exposure. With a quick google search, I did find a secondary source:
http://www.michigan.gov/documents/Chlor ... 2357_7.pdf
Long-term (chronic) effects:
• Long-term exposure to low levels of chlorine gas is potentially linked to diseases of the
lung (bronchitis, shortness of breath, possible permanent damage) and tooth corrosion.
• No cancer or reproductive effects have been reported from chronic exposure to chlorine.
The problem is that
nobody is interested in doing long-term chronic exposure studies. Long-term studies are expensive, and probably could not survive from one governmental administration to the next as funding priorities change. Corporations don't like losing a revenue source, and if their own private studies proved that something they sell is unhealthy, it's best just not to fund the study - or bury it. They aren't legally bound to publish detrimental results. They probably don't publish any results until after they can patent something from it.
Scientists always say, "Prove what you say is true." I cannot help but wonder why nobody is saying back: "You prove that it isn't true." Tobacco was "not a health risk" because nobody had any proof for how long? Aids was not a real disease for how many years before people finally discovered the virus? Yes - I'll grant that all we have right now for the most part are anecdotal experiences, but they come from a growing number of people.
It's not like I'm saying "Plieadian aliens are coming to take us away", here.
Remember DDT? I remember a video where kids were bicycling through the cloud of fumes behind the government fumigation trucks in suburban neighborhoods. The government-sponsored video was created to show how 'safe' DDT was. It's banned today.
Sir, I prefer the precautionary principle: We know immediate overexposure to chlorine gas can cook lungs. That's bad. You
prove to me that long-term exposure to low levels of chlorine gas is
not a health risk to any cross-section of the human population: perhaps infants or the elderly. Then we can reach a middle ground.
Lasers were once impossible. Teleporation was once impossible. (They can do it today, but only
one atom at a time. It's true.) It's ironic to talk about 'true' or 'real' science and 'right reasons.' Scientists who always say 'prove it's true' never stop to think it might be wiser and more efficient to prove something is not true, often because that would fail to line their wallets for seventeen years from a lousy patent at the expense of a sustainable foreseeable future.
I've noticed that when we stopped using tap water to cook in our Revere-ware pots, the stainless steel stopped getting more pitted inside the pot. You say it damages the humidifier tank too. Both of these are long-term physical effects on inanimate objects. What does that say about chlorinated water? I cannot help but wonder what effects tap water would have on my lungs over the course of years if I used it in my tank. Ugh.
We can at least agree that distilled water is best - even if it is for different reasons.