Study: Dogs Don’t Get Bladder Cancer Drinking Tap Water
A study led by Dr Lorraine Backer of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is providing comfort to some pet owners who worry their dogs will get bladder cancer from drinking tap water.
When earlier research suggested a human’s risk of bladder cancer increases after long-term exposure to chemically-treated waters, some concerned pet owners began giving their dogs bottled water to quench their thirst.
Dr Bracker’s team studied 200 dogs, 100 with bladder cancer and 100 without, living in residential settings. After reviewing the chemical exposures in both dog populations, the scientists’ found no statistics to support a connection between tap water consumption and bladder cancer.
One possible reason for this difference in animals and humans: Dogs often let water sit longer before drinking it than humans do which reduces chemical concentrations in the water. Also, people typically take more showers and baths, so there are more opportunities for chemicals to be absorbed through the skin.
If you’d like to learn more, this canine cancer study is published in the June 1, 2008, edition of the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association.
Source: American Veterinary Medical Association News
Related Audio: Tap Water or Bottled Water? from KUOW.org on NPR
Technorati Tags: chloramine; oncology; urologic cancer; genitourinary cancer; chlorine
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One thing this article doesn’t point out is the dizzying rate in which water treatment plants are switching from chlorine to chloramine, a chemical made out of chlorine and ammonia, for tap water disinfection.
This is happening because of a new EPA rule requiring two chemicals, THMs and HAAs, made by chlorine and organic matter naturally occurring in source water such as bits of decomposing leaves or algae, be lowered. Chloramine also makes these chemicals but not to the degree chlorine does.
The EPA suspects THMs and HAAs in drinking water may lead to bladder cancer in some people after around 40 years of ingestion.
Unfortunately, there are many other chemicals that chloramine makes when it combines with organic matter in the water. None of them are regulated, and many have recently been found to be far more carcinogenic than any that chlorine makes. Nitrosamines, for instance. Your water district DOES NOT HAVE TO TEST FOR ANY UNREGULATED CHEMICALS IN TAP WATER.
But, the main reason for typing this message is that veterinarians and pet owners should know that, unlike chlorine, chloramine takes weeks to dissipate out of water. So if you have chloraminated water coming out of your tap, Fido is going to be ingesting the full load of chloramine long before you add more water to his drinking bowl.
I forgot one thing: for more information on how chloramine is affecting humans where I live in VT please visit http://www.vce.org/chloramine. We also have reports of dogs and cats with skin (very itchy that often includes rash) and digestive issues (diarrhea/inflammatory bowel disease), since the switch from chlorine to chloramine in our municipal water system.
Ellen, thank you for sharing your insights (and the link) with our readers. That’s what CancerResearchJournal.com is all about: exchanging cancer-related research faster so people can make more informed choices. If you haven’t already done so, I encourage you to bookmark the link you gave us on a social media site — CRJ uses del.icio.us primarily, but there are many others out there — so people who don’t read our journal can also find the information faster. Take care.