BehindTheMedspeak: Bottled water is contaminated

You know, this is getting kind of repetitive, don't you think?

I mean, first it was your tap water at home; then the water in airplanes.

So you figure well, you'll drink Perrier.

Guess what?

Nowhere to run,

nowhere to hide.

Makes you wonder if the fancy-shmancy website finewaters.com, dedicated to the art of finding the perfect drinking water, is just so much hot - or cold, as the case may be - E. Coli.

Here's Marilyn Chase's story from the November 2 Wall Street Journal about the latest dirty laundry in the world of water.
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Bottled Water Isn't Always Pure

Bottled water's image as pure and healthful isn't always necessarily true, especially for hospital patients, who might be better off sipping tap water, a Dutch study suggested.

A small study of 68 bottles of mineral water from Europe and elsewhere has found contamination with bacteria and fungi, said Rocus Klont, a researcher at the University Medical Center Nijmegen, in Nijmegen, Netherlands.

No U.S. bottled-water brands were included in the study.

Healthy members of the general public "should not worry," said Dr. Klont.

"The question is if it might pose a risk to people whose immune systems are severely compromised."

The study found traces of Legionella bacteria, which causes Legionnaire's disease when inhaled.

It also found evidence of the mold penicillium, part of a ubiquitous family of fungi, some of which cause illness while others are used to make products including the antibiotic penicillin.

The study was presented at the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobials and Chemotherapy in Washington.

People with strong immune systems often can fight off exposure to small amounts of germs.

And it isn't known whether the bacteria and fungi found in the water could cause infection among people with weak immune systems.

However, Dr. Klont cautioned that such patients, including bone-marrow transplant patients, shouldn't assume that bottled water is pure, and might fare better by drinking well-tested tap water or sterilized water.

Depending on location, tap water may be more strictly tested and regulated than bottled water.

Dr. Klont declined to name any specific water brands because he said the sample sizes were small and unrepresentative.

Researchers also lacked information about the waters' source, production, handling, distribution patterns, and points of sale - information needed to adequately assess individual brand safety.

Dr. Klont's team tested bottled mineral waters from nine European countries: Norway, France, Italy, Germany, Greece, Austria, Spain, Hungary and Turkey.

They also tested water from India, Morocco, Australia, Canada, Tanzania, Mexico and Cuba.

In all, 68 bottles were tested.

He obtained the water samples by asking members of his lab to bring home mineral water from their vacations.

The study was prompted by the common practice in Europe of placing a bottle of mineral water by a patient's bedside table, Dr. Klont said.

Several important questions await further study.

Dr. Klont said he doesn't know how the contaminant got into the water nor does he know the likelihood of disease from finding traces of Legionella bacteria in six samples.

Legionella causes Legionnaire's disease, a respiratory ailment that can be fatal, when inhaled.

It isn't known whether drinking the water could produce a backwash of microscopic droplets that could be inhaled to cause illness.

In the U.S., consumers buy more bottled water than beer, milk or coffee, according to Beverage Marketing Corp., a New York-based consulting firm.

Sales of bottled water exceeded $8.3 billion in 2003, with volume of nearly 6.4 billion gallons, rising 7.5% over 2002 volume.

The two largest U.S. brands, PepsiCo Inc.'s Aquafina and Coca-Cola Co.'s Dasani, both are purified from tap water in a process called "reverse osmosis," which removes virtually all particles from the water, including bacteria and minerals. (Certain minerals are added back into the Dasani brand.)

Other top brands include Poland Spring, Arrowhead and Deer Park, which are regional brands derived from natural springs. All three are owned by Nestlé SA.

Coca-Cola was forced to pull its Dasani brand from the U.K. market in March, shortly after the product's launch there, after tests it conducted found excessive levels of bromate, a chemical that can increase the risk of cancer from long-term exposure.

Coke said the elevated levels of bromate resulted from calcium chloride it had added to the water to meet a U.K. legal requirement.