The Blue Death: The Intriguing Past and Present Danger of the Water You Drink (Paperback)

~ Robert D. Morris (Author)
Key Phrases: drinking water industry, blue death, cholera rates, John Snow, Broad Street, New Orleans (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this engrossing and disquieting book, the author, who specializes in drinking water epidemiology, raises the alarm about hidden perils in our water. He traces the history of the search for water-borne pathogens from the mid-19th century, when doctors discovered the bacterium that causes cholera (the blue death), to the 20th century, when it was found that chlorination and filtration would block many of the organisms responsible for diseases such as typhoid fever, dysentery and cholera. But today, our water supply is far from safe. Some pathogens elude conventional filters; others are resistant to chlorine; and chlorinated drinking water may increase the risk of certain cancers. Climate change, emerging diseases, toxic chemicals, decaying pipes and terrorism also threaten our water. To dramatize his thesis, Morris describes devastating outbreaks of gastrointestinal disease, such as the one caused by a parasite in Milwaukee's drinking water that sickened 400,000 people in 1993. During the 19th century, doctors had to overcome opposition from those who refused to believe that diseases could be waterborne. Now, epidemiologists and researchers who advocate for tighter controls on drinking water must battle drinking water industry lobbyists who resist regulatory efforts. Morris argues persuasively that unless we do more to protect the water we drink, we court disaster.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* As physician and outspoken public health expert Morris recounts, with crystal clarity, some of history's epic drinking water disasters, from the 1853 London cholera outbreak to the 1993 cryptosporidiosis outbreak that sickened some 4,000 Milwaukee residents, and how thousands were saved by improved water treatment, it's easy to be lulled into smug contentedness. After all, American water is protected by not just the Clean Water Act but also the Safe Drinking Water Act. Morris contends, however, that outdated and inadequate filtration, by means employing possibly carcinogenic chlorine, fails to remove thousands of potentially hazardous chemicals from public freshwater sources. Add that concern to a water-delivery infrastructure at or nearing the end of its design-life expectancy, and you have reason enough to shake off all science-has-saved-us complacency. Throw in the too-easily-downplayed threat of bioterrorism, and you may join in Morris' clarion call for a fiercely proactive torrent of new technology in addition to expensive, if unglamorous, infrastructure replacement. Morris put the words death, disease, and disaster in the book's title to warn readers that his no-holds-barred narrative isn't for the squeamish. Pass the vodka, please. Uh, no ice. Chavez, Donna --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Harper Paperbacks; Reprint edition (August 5, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060730900
• ISBN-13: 978-0060730901
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #342,095 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars WOW!! Be Very Afraid, Your Drinking Water is NOT Safe, August 21, 2007

By	Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

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This review is from: The Blue Death: Disease, Disaster, and the Water We Drink (Hardcover)

I get hit on a lot by authors and publishers, and one out of a hundred "leads" is actually worthwhile. This is such a lead. The author called me (the dumb ones send their stuff to create landfill) and I was absolutely interested in this topic. I list some other books below.

There are two bottom lines to this book:

1) Chlorine cannot kill all threats and causes its own damage. It specifically cannot kill cryptosporidium, which can quickly sicken tens of thousands and kill hundreds.

2) Your drinking water is not safe to drink, there are some things you can do, but on balance, the Nation needs a *major* campaign to salvage its entire drinking water and sewage treatment system.

I really, really, like this book. The author is gifted at presenting important information in an easy to understand and almost poetic manner. He really puts life into history, and urgency into current concerns.

I have a note: 5 stars. Truly EXCITING, gripping at every point.

He taught me the value of meta-analysis, and I am going to migrate that to the EarthGame that we are building with Medard Gabel, the brilliant cohort to Buckminster Fuller, whose forthcoming book, Seven Billion Billionaires, I strongly recommend.

Although I have read and strongly recommend Pandora's Poison: Chlorine, Health, and a New Environmental Strategy, the author does an excellent "snapshot" job of alerting us to the dangers of chlorine by pointing out that Chlorine Gas killed tens of thousands, and that as late as 1974 there was no real understanding of its pathologies, and as recently as 1996, there was no real program to address the many deficiencies of our drinking water supplyl.

I draw from this book early on the importance of NOT privatizing water services. Corporations seeking profit cut corners and are most definitely not interested in reducing the risk of death if it impacts on their bottom line. Throughout the book, one finds that BOTH the corporate sector AND the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are in a sympiotic relationship intended to increase profits, lower costs, and kill Americans lightly.

The book provides a number of eye-opening facts, a few of which I list here:

1) Cholera is unique to humans and so tests on animals yield nothing.
2) Safe water is not an end but a constant process.
3) Chicago "yards" are the ultimate poisoneer--manure into water is our death bell.
4) As of 1992, USA water distribution is a disaster waiting to happen.
5) Usefully documents how denial and incompetence increased the death tolls time and again, around the world. Hamburg took 33 years to finally realize that it MUST filter its water.
6) I now understand the value of Environemtnal Epidemiology and will try to factor that into the EarthGame. This author does a superb job of making statistics exciting and meaningful.
7) He tars the EPA and other US Government elements for consistently lying to the public for reasons of money and politics. He makes the case for HONEST SCIENCE. See The Republican War on Science
8) He documents the need for real-time data. I am a proponent of 114 and 119 numbers, and believe that all citizens should be able to call in medical symptoms to a central database, e.g. dial 114-D for diahrea, 114-V for vomit.
9) The author is utterly compelling in describing how very hard it is to track down waterborne diseases, this is literally the needle in the haystack problem, where one might find 10 oocysts in a litter of water--ten *transparent* oocysts.
10) Katrina shut down 1200 water treatment plants and 269 sewage treatment plants.
11) Drinking water distribution is every city's weak link; Al Qaeda has studied US water distribution systems (remember, Bin Laden was an engineer), and they KNOW that enough bags of manure into the system post-filtration will do a great deal of damage.
12) Home filtration systems are ESSENTIAL to guarding against contamination, and boiling water is ESSENTIAL at the first sign of a bio-chemical attack through the water distribution system.
13) The author provides a heart-rending account of how cholera killed 60,000 in Zaire in one week, with corpses piled up 2-3 deep along the road, and the feces from the weak survivors running down the hill into the lake to contaminate that water so that many more might die.
14) The USA has up to TEN MILLION cases of waterborne disease each year.
15) The inter-state and inter-agency process related to water (and I surmise, to every other topic) is completely broken.
16) Washington "action" is "a glacier on steroids."
17) 861 BILLIOIN gallons of SEWAGE go into US rivers in any given year.
18) Bottled water is not only NOT safer or cleaner than tap water, but it costs one thousand times as much, and the water needed to create the throw-away plastic bottle is GREATER than the water contained in the bottle.

The author ends rather quietly, suggesting that dialog, no secrets, and research are needed, and he provides several meritorious recommendations at the end, but I put the book down feeling that my best defense is localized resilience. Neither the federal nor the state not the local governments can be trusted. They have all been corrupted. Until the public realizes that it is drinking poisoned water, one is best off not drinking the water at all.

SUPERB BOOK!!!!! Bravo. See also:
The Health of Nations: Infectious Disease, Environmental Change, and Their Effects on National Security and Development
Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health
Diet for a Small Planet

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Definitely worth reading, July 31, 2007

By	TRay "T. Ray" (NYC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Blue Death: Disease, Disaster, and the Water We Drink (Hardcover)

Morris is an extraordinary writer and storyteller turning what could be a dry (no pun intended) topic into a page turner that is tough to put down. He unfolds his case that water is a environmental issue we all should be seriously concerned about not just globally, but in our own back yards, with histical and real life stories that are fascinating and chilling. Add it to your summer reading list!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You Will Never Look at Water in the Same Way Again!, September 4, 2007

By	David B Richman (Mesilla Park, NM USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Blue Death: Disease, Disaster, and the Water We Drink (Hardcover)

In my life I have drunk water from a lot of sources. At one point when I was a teenager we discovered water bugs flowing out of a tap in Arizona! We were drinking nearly untreated river water! From then on my mother added chlorine to our drinking water and her treatment was worse than any city supply! I have drunk water from a spring in the mountains (delicious I must say) and (using a filter) from Mexican city taps. So far I am still here, but the message of the "The Blue Death: Disease, Disaster, and the Water we Drink" by Robert D. Morris, is that I have been very lucky.

Water is an absolute necessity and the modern water treatment plant is our defense, however tenuous, against epidemic diarrheal disorders, including the granddaddy of them all- cholera. Still diarrheal diseases are one of the major killers worldwide, ranking with malaria and AIDS. It is especially hard on children. We in the developed world have become so used to having a "safe" water supply that we don't even think about it. But safe water is one of the many unexciting aspects of necessary infrastructure (like bridges and levees) that are closer to the breaking point than any of us want to contemplate. Morris (who is a medical researcher and teacher) has done us all a great favor by pointing out the precarious position that we are all in.

He starts with the history of the famous removal of the Broad Street pump handle in London in the mid 1850s. This removal apparently stopped an epidemic of cholera cold. He points out that even this step was controversial, with "sanitarians" not convinced of the connection between water and disease. Microorganisms had yet to be directly connected to disease in humans and many thought the problem lay in the miasmas the emanated from the swamps, sewers and cesspools in and around the city. The sanitarians solution was to wash all the waste into the river, thus creating more epidemics of diarrheal diseases, including cholera.

We have come a long way since the days of the Broad Street pump, but only in the developed world. In most of the planet, drinking water is not safe and in some places, such as the war-torn Congo, drinking any but bottled water may be a death sentence. Even bottled water, as Morris points out, is not safe as there are no standards and some is simply high priced tap water. Beside, the plastic is dumped back into our landfills and its safe production takes more water than a bottle holds!

Morris has a number of recommendations that should be followed, if we are to secure our drinking water. He also points out that we ignore the Third World's water problems at our own peril, as diseases seldom stop at borders. This is a must read book for anybody who drinks the stuff - i.e. all of us!