The Lancet, a respected British medical journal recently published a study covering over 12,000 people indicating that up to 77 million in Bangladesh suffer from toxic levels of arsenic from their water supplies. From CNN:
An international team of researchers from Chicago, New York and Bangladesh followed 12,000 people over the past decade, monitoring their arsenic intake and mortality rates from contaminated wells.
By the end of the study, one in five deaths were determined to be directly related to elevated arsenic levels in their system. Stretch that over the entire population that takes its water from wells, and the impact is daunting.
The problem has been known about for years, if not the overall deadly impact.
Well-meaning development groups had encouraged remote villages across Bangladesh to dig wells over the past decades, rather than rely on potentially contaminated surface water and dirty rivers. But now potentially a much worse problem has been found far below the surface.
Unfortunately, arsenic is also found in abundance in the soil and rock in Bangladesh. It’s leached up through the water table in tens of millions of water wells across the country.
Read more from this story on CNN: Millions In Bangladesh Exposed to Arsenic In Drinking Water
Although the World Health Organization has warned of this dire situation for years, calling it the “largest mass poisoning of a population in history”, it took a comprehensive multicultural study to pound home the facts and consequences. One can’t help but wonder what other regions and populations may suffer undefined arsenic toxicity without knowing it.
So I encourage you to research the levels of arsenic in the soil and water where you live, then take the necessary precautions with an appropriate arsenic water filter. An arsenic filter is a relatively inexpensive protection from potentially priceless damage.
I also encourage humanitarian and government organizations to take action and provide appropriate arsenic water filters for the suffering population of Bangladesh.