1999 | OriginalPaper | Chapter
Uncertainty and Variability Analysis
Author : Douglas J. Crawford-Brown
Published in: Risk-Based Environmental Decisions
Publisher: Springer US
Included in: Professional Book Archive
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The Environmental Protection Agency is developing final standards for the allowable concentrations of disinfection by-products (discussed in Chapter 3) in U.S. drinking water supplies. While disinfection is known to lower significantly the risk from microbial infections, epidemiological studies have suggested that there are cancer and other risks from the DBPs [1]. Many other disinfection byproducts, however, remain to be identified and the public health significance of these is unknown. The relatively low concentrations of the various natural and man-made contaminants in existing drinking water, the inability to obtain valid and complete exposure histories for individuals, and the challenge of controlling confounding factors, have made it difficult for epidemiological studies to detect and estimate risks of cancer from the DBPs [1,2]. Still, information on exposure of animals to individual DBPs has allowed the EPA to develop health criteria in drinking water that would result in either no expectation of non-cancer health effects or an acceptable lifetime probability of cancer (see the discussion in Chapter 5).