Bladder Cancer and Chlorine in Drinking Water – National Bladder Cancer Study Shows Linkage

According to findings published by the Environmental Epidemiology Branch of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, MD. The researchers say that, having currently undeterred bias, the risk factor in developing bladder cancer among people who ingested chlorinated water range from 12 to 27 percent, with risk escalating among smokers. One of the researchers, Kenneth Cantor, PhD. Of the National Cancer Institute tells Water Technology that the linkage is based on data gathered over a period of a year and a half in the late ‘70s. The National Bladder Cancer Study involved some 9000 people from all over the country about 3000 bladder cancer cases and 6000 non-cancer cases.Associations are seen between the level of tap water consumption and the incidence of bladder cancer. “When we grouped the people according to what their source of drinking water had been,” Dr. Cantor explains, “the risk was much, much stronger among people who had been drinking chlorinated water for much of their lives, as contrasted to those who had been drinking non-chlorinated water. Dr. Cantor says that in fact the people who had been drinking non-chlorinated water showed No increase in risk with the increase in volume of ingested tap Water ,“Cancer risk increased with the amount of consumed water,” he says, “but it was seen only in people who had been drinking chlorinated water most of their lives. Dr. Cantor’s conclusions have been published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.