About Arsenic

Health Effects of Arsenic

Arsenic Occurrence in the United States

History of Arsenic Legislation

Health Effects of Arsenic

Throughout history, arsenic has been used as a poison. One of the earliest documented cases of arsenic poisoning was Nero’s poisoning of Brittannicus to secure the Roman throne in 55 A.D. French scientists believe that French and British conspirators poisoned Napoleon with arsenic. In the winter of 1609-1610, more than 90 percent of the Jamestown colony perished. Many scientists believe the deaths were the result of arsenic poisoning at the hands of the Spanish government intent on getting rid of the English colony.

Today, arsenic continues to poison millions of Americans. The element occurs naturally in the soil and enters the water supply throughout the U.S., especially in the west, mid-west and New England. After more than 20 years of debate, a new arsenic standard was signed into law in late 2001, reducing the allowable level for the contaminant in drinking water by more than 80%. The law impacts 4,100 public water systems that serve 13 million people. An additional 40 million Americans obtain their water from private wells, which are not protected by the new standard and may have high levels of arsenic. Even at the new level of 10 parts per billion (ppb), three in 1,000 people exposed will die from cancer. For the past two decades, the EPA’s maximum acceptable level of risk for all other drinking water contaminants has been one in 10,000.

Potential short-term health effects associated with arsenic exposure include:

Stomach pain Difficulty Swallowing

Vomiting Low blood pressure

Skin lesions Convulsions

Pigmentation Gastrointestinal problems

Potential long-term health effects associated with arsenic exposure include:

Bladder cancer Gangrene Immunological disorders

Skin cancer Limb loss Endocrine disorders

Kidney cancer Keratosis Hematological disorders

Liver cancer Neurological effects Reproductive problems

Prostate cancer Cardiovascular disease Developmental problems

Lung cancer Pulmonary disease

References

The EPA’s Office of Research and Development may have also discovered a link to DNA damage caused by arsenic compounds. The research shows arsenic inducing a reaction between itself and DNA, causing certain genetic alterations in the DNA that result in breakage.

The following links are references to some current research projects on the health effects of arsenic:

www.epa.gov/safewater/arsenic.html http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~asrg/

The following references are papers presented on the health effects of arsenic exposure that can be accessed at a library:

Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. 1998. Draft Toxicological Profile for

Arsenic. Prepared for the US Department of Health and Human Services by the

Research Triangle Institute.

Albores, A., M. E. Cebrian, I. Tellez and B. Valdez. 1979. Comparative Study of Chronic

Hydroarsenicism in Two Rural Communities in the Region Lagunra of Mexico.

[in Spanish]. Bol. Oficina Sanit. Panam. 86:196-205.

Buchanan, W.D. 1962. Toxicity of Arsenic Compounds. Amsterdam, Elsevier Scientific

Publishes. Pp v-viii.

Cebrian, M. E., A. Albores, M. Aguilar and E. Blakely. 1983. Chronic Arsenic Poisoning

in the North of Mexico. Human Toxicology. 2:121-133.

Chen, C. J., Y. C. Chuang, T. M. Lin and H. Y. Wu. 1985. Malignant Neoplasms Among

Residents of a Blackfoot Disease Endemic Area in Taiwan: High Arsenic Well

Water and Cancers. Cancer Research. 45:5895-5899.

Hopenhayn-Rich, C., M. L. Biggs, A. Fuchs, R. Bergoglio, E. E. Tello, H. Nicolli and A.

H. Smith. 1996. Bladder Cancer Mortality Associated With Arsenic in Drinking

Water in Argentina. Epidemiology. 7(2):117-124.

Hopenhayn-Rich, C., M. L. Biggs and A. H. Smith. 1998. Lung and Kidney Cancer

Mortality Associated With Arsenic in Drinking Water in Cordoba, Argentina.

Epidemiology. 27:561-569.

Kurttio, P, E. Pukkala, H. Kahelin, A. Auvinen, and J. Pekkanen. 1999. Arsenic

Concentrations in Well Water and Risk of Bladder and Kidney Cancer in

Finland. Environmental Health Perspectives. 107(9):705-710.

Lai, M.S., Y.M. Hsueh, C.J. Chien, M.P. Shyu, S.Y. Chen, T. L. Kuo, M.M. Wu, and

T. Y. Tai. 1994. Ingested Inorganic Arsenic and Prevalence of Diabetes Mellitus.

American Journal of Epidemiology. 139(5):484-492.

Lewis, D. R., J. W. Southwick, R. Ouellet-Hellstrom, J. Rench and R. L. Calderon. 1999.

Drinking Water Arsenic in Utah: A Cohort Mortality Study . Environmental

Health Perspectives. 107(5):359-365.

Morris, J.S., M. Schmid, S. Newman, P.J. Scheuer and S. Sherlock. 1974. Arsenic and

Noncirrhotic Portal Hypertension. Gastroenterology. 66:86-94.

National Research Council. 1999. Arsenic in Drinking Water. Washington, DC. National

Academy Press.

Neubauer, O. 1947. Arsenical Cancer: A Review. British Journal of Cancer. 1:192-251.

(as cited in US EPA, 1976)

Smith, A.H., M. Goycolea, R. Haque and M. L. Biggs. 1998. Marked Increase in Bladder

and Lung Cancer Mortality in a Region of Northern Chile Due to Arsenic in

Drinking Water. American Journal of Epidemiology. 147(7):660-669.

Smith, A.S. 1998. Feasibility of New Epidemiologic Studies of Low Level Arsenic.

AWWARF. Winter 1998.

Tay, C. H. and C.S. Seah. 1975. Arsenic Poisoning From Anti-Asthmatic Herbal

Preparations. Medical Journal, Australia. 2:424-428.

Tice, R., T. Goldsworthy, and G. Moser. 2000. Sodium Arsenite Studies in p53 +/- Mice.

AWWARF. Summer 2000.

Tsai, S.M., T. N. Wang and Y.C. Ko. 1999. Mortality for Certain Diseases in Areas with

High Levels of Arsenic in Drinking Water. Archives of Environmental Health.

54(3):186-193.

Tseng, W. P. 1977. Effects and Dose-Response Relationships of Skin Cancer and

Blackfoot Disease with Arsenic. Environmental Health Perspectives. 19:109-119.

Tseng W. P., H. M. Chu , S. W. How, J. M. Fong, C.S. Lin and S. Yeh. 1968. Prevalence

of Skin Cancer in an Epidemic Area of Chronic Arsenicism in Taiwan. Journal of

the National Cancer Institute. 40(3):453-463.

US EPA. 1984. Health Assessment Document for Inorganic Arsenic. Office of Health

and Environmental Assessment, Office of Research and Development. EPA-

600/8-83-021F. March, 1984.

US EPA. 1996. Investigator-Initiated Grants on Health Effects of Arsenic. Federal

World Health Organization. 1981. Environmental health Criteria 18 Arsenic. United

Nations Environmental Programme, International Labour Organisation, and the

World Health Organization.

Wu, M. M., T. L. Kuo, Y. H. Hwang and C. J. Chen. 1989. Dose-Response Relation

Between Arsenic Concentration in Well Water and Mortality From Cancers and

Vascular Diseases. American Journal of Epidemiology. 130(6):1123-1132.

Yeh, S. 1973. Skin Cancer in Chronic Arsenicism. Human Pathology. 4(4):469-485.

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Arsenic Occurrence in the United States

The United States Geological Survey has compiled the following map of arsenic in drinking water in the United States.

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The History of Arsenic Regulation

Arsenic Legislatve Timeline

Date	Action
1942	The drinking water standard was set at 50 parts per billion (ppb) by the U.S Public Health Service.
1975	This standard was adopted by the U.S Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a result of the passage of the Safe Drinking Water Act.
1989	COntroversy around health effects studies caused postponement of final rule until November, 1992
November 1992	The EPA, citing the need to further to evaluate health effects, postponed the final rule until September 1994
September 1994	Due to a delay in the EPA studies, the final rule was postponed until November 1995.
November 1995	Due to Congressional concerns, including cost of implementing a solution, the final rule was postponed until January 2000,
June 2000	New rule proposal isued with final rule date of Jun22, 2001
January 2001	The EPA posted a final rule in the Federal Register, five months ahead of schedule, lowering the standard from 50 to 10 ppb. The EPA also established a health-based, non-enforceable Maximum Contaminant Level Goal (MCLG) for arsenic of 0 ppb.
March 2001	Under the new leadership of the Bush administration the EPA withdrew the rule. They stated that more research on cost and health effects was needed. The effective date of the new rule was delayed until May 22, 2001.
May 2001	The effective date was delayed again by the EPA, until February 22, 2002, stating a need for public reaction and additional research. Studies on the benefits of a new standard, cost expectations and health effects were commissioned by the agency. Even though under the Bush administration, the EPA refused to implement the final rule of 10 ppb, they publicly acknowledged that the standard needed to be lowered somewhere between 3 and 20 ppb.
August 2001	Reports of the study and suggestions of the Arsenic Cost Working Group were concluded by the National Drinking Water Advisory (NDWAC) and delivered to the EPA. The NDWAC stated that a valid evaluation of the cost of compliance was presented by the EPA, but that other treatment options, like Point-of-Use, could possibly allow smaller water systems to conform more cost-effectively.
August 2001	The final report on the benefits of a lowered standard was given by the Science Advisory board (SAB) to the EPA.
September 2001	The results of the health effects study was released by the National Adademy of Sciences (NAS). It was reported that the dangers of cancer are much higher than they had been previously reconized under the Clinton and Bush administrations.
October 2001	The EPA released information on and availability of three reports – the health effects/science report prepared by the National Academy of Sciences, the costs report of the National Drinking Water Advisory Council, and the benefits report of the EPA’s Science Advisory Board. These reports can be viewed online at: NAS health effects report: http://www.nap.edu/books/0309076293/html/ NDWAC costs report: http://www.epa.gov/safewater/ars/ndwac-arsenic-report.pdf SAB benefits report: http://www.epa.gov/sab/ec01008.pdf
October 2001	EPA announces call for public comment on the three reports by October 31, 2001.
November 2001	Official announcement by the EPA that it would lower the arsenic standard from 50 ppb to 10 ppb.
November 2001	The bill for the new arsenic standard of 10 ppb was signed by President George W. Bush. Public water systems were given until 2006 to comply with the new rule.

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