This report suggests exposure to TCE in swimming pools or via chlorinated public water supplies may pose additional or different risk considerations…
From Dow Chemical’s Investor Risk Report – April 2004 (see page 16):
The research that has been done indicates a disturbing trend with respect
to chlorine chemistry. According to the International Agency for Research
on Cancer (IARC), a division of the World Health Organization (WHO), there is sufficient or suggestive evidence of carcinogenicity for over 100 organochlorines or groups of organochlorines comprising over a thousand compounds. Vinyl chloride, the main ingredient in PVC, a major product for Dow, is one such known carcinogen. Chlorinated ethylenes, which comprise large product categories for Dow, such as vinyl chloride, trichloroethylene, perchloroethylene and dichlorotetraflouroethane, have been found to be neurotoxins.
A German study of organochlorines by Dr. Dietrich Henschler examined how chlorination affects the toxicity of chemicals. He looked at the health impacts of hundreds of organochlorines by examining the toxicity of the constituent elements of the chemicals and then analyzed what changed when chlorine was added. The organochlorines examined included acetylenes, benzenes, biphenyls, butadienes, butanes, chlorinated methanes, dioxins, ethanes, ethylenes, furans, parafins, phenols, propanes, and various insecticides.
He had four major findings:
1. The introduction of chlorine into organic compounds is almost always associated with increases in toxicity. This applied to all types of toxic effects including mutagenicity, carcinogenicity, as well as acute, sub-chronic and chronic toxicity, and reproductive toxicity. Toxicity tended to occur at concentrations orders of magnitude lower than in constituent elements.
2. Introduction of chlorine produced entirely new toxic effects that were not present in the constituent elements.
3. Carcinogenicity increased markedly with the introduction of chlorine.
4. Toxicity tended to increase with the number of chlorine atoms in the molecule.
Download the report (1.7MB PDF)
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