Chloramine and Your Shower

Someone pointed me towards foxgrrl's LJ post about this chemical used to disinfect drinking water, through the addition of both chlorine and ammonia.

Executive Summary

• Chloramine, formed in the municipal water supply by the use of both chlorine and ammonia and used as a disinfectant, has not been extensively studied for its safety in humans. High doses (as with chlorine, iodine, ozone and other water supply disinfectants) are known to be toxic.
  
• Water quality agencies are concerned primarily with microbiological quality, i.e. does the water contain bacteria. They are right on the numbers, considering that a clean water supply is one of the underappreciated essentials for technological civilization. However, their interest in and ability to clean potable water of organics, volatiles, and toxic substances is very limited.
  
• Volatiles such as chloramine (and di- and tri-chloramines), chlorine, and other organic chemicals can be absorbed and more importantly, inhaled -- which crosses the blood barrier directly through the lungs. These routes of exposure have not been extensively studied and may have serious health effects at much lower doses than with ingestion (where the digestion process breaks down these chemicals.)
  
• As I am neither a chemist nor a water quality specialist, and especially not a doctor, I don't know if the chloramine - nitrate - hemoglobin binding route posited by foxgrrl is valid or not. However, the fact that she notices, as a trained observer, a substantial effect on her health is good enough for me to also take notice.
  
• I (drewkitty), on no particular authority whatsoever, strongly recommend that you ventilate your bathroom while taking a shower. Use strong positive pressure ventilation, i.e. a powered fan within 3" of the window, pointing out the window, with a cracked bathroom door. Do not exhaust into the house. Overhead fans do not have sufficient exchange. Limit shower temperature to a comfortable level and reduce shower times as much as feasible, i.e. <10 minutes or take a "Navy" shower of wet-stop-soap-rinse. Also consider taking a bath instead. (Droplet formation in showers causes more exposure of water to air and thus more offgassing.)
  
• This recommendation does not hurt anything, saves hot water energy, reduces mold formation in bathrooms . . . and if there is anything to this chloramine/inhaled water contaminants issue, would reduce exposure dramatically, anywhere from 30% to 70%.
  
• At the present state of the art, shower filters are of limited and controversial value. Save your money.
  
• If one were highly concerned, one might purchase a whole-house RO or multiple-filter carbon system (we are talking thousands here) . . . or if one purchases a shower filter of dubious quality, either a rigorous replacement schedule should be followed or a testing kit should be used, or both.
  

Readers of the Deviant Survival Guide are reminded that paranoia is unhealthy.


( LONG discussion of scientific literature, bibliography, etc )