[at-l] Re: Water Treatment Survey in American Journal of Medicine

[thornel at attglobal.net (W F Thorneloe)]

I saw that article also on Yanoo, but I do not know the journal cited. I 
haven't received this week's JAMA yet, which was the most likely misquoted 
version of the journal's name. The news article says little about the 
selection and design of this study. It has obvious flaws as a retrospective 
self report format.

The key quote is:
      "We found that a decreased incidence of diarrhea was associated with 
consistent water disinfection, especially of surface water sources; routine 
cleaning of cookware; and routine hand washing with soap and water," they 
write.

The brief study does nothing to clarify which areas of sanitation are most 
important. Given the apparent selection of hikers with as little as 7 trail 
days, Giardia and Crypto shouldn't be well represented by this survey. Food 
poisoning from poorly cleaned gear and fecal/oral contamination from 
toileting practices still seems more likely - at least to me. A better 
study would have taken cultures of fingernails, pots, spoons and then asked 
the questions. A prospective study that would practice LNT would provide 
alcohol gel to hikers for sanitation post toilet. There ain't no money for 
such studies.

Soap and water handwashing will not occur among those practicing LNT. You 
need water. LNT discourages defecation near water - for obvious reasons.

OrangeBug

At 08:49 AM 5/8/03 -0400, Tim Woodworth wrote:

>A friend saw a notice on a Yahoo news page titled "Backpackers: Don't 
>Drink the Water" and thought of me.  I was curious what the non-hiking 
>press had to say and well I'm still curious.