Health Risk Found in Public Pools
Public swimming pools are more dangerous than you might think, a new study suggests. When sweat and urine, among other organics, mix with the disinfectants in pool water, the result can be hazardous to health.
The findings, announced this week, link the application of disinfectants in recreational pools to genetic cell damage that has been shown to be linked with adverse health outcomes such as asthma and bladder cancer.
Pool water represents extreme cases of disinfection that differ from the disinfection of drinking water as pools are continuously exposed to disinfectants. But with so many people cooling off and exercising in pools and water parks (339 million visits across the United States each year), the disinfectants are a must to prevent outbreaks of infectious disease.