How widespread is chlorine contamination?
It is so widespread that it would be difficult to find any human being who does not have detectable levels of dioxin in his/her blood. While we know that chlorine is a substantial environmental problem caused by the paper industry, household bleach and cleaners containing chlorine also pose a serious health risk. For instance, in 1997, 217,989 calls to the Poison Control Center concerned household cleaners. Of those calls, 54,453 were about chlorine bleach and 7,570 were for chlorine disinfectants. So, that means that 28.4 percent of all calls were related to poisonings by chlorine products. What’s even more important, most of those calls were about children under 6 years old. Further to this we have seen a substantial rise in swimming related chlorine reactions, especially with young children who have a tendency to asthma and allergies.
