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Cooling off in the pool could mean ingesting a cocktail of sweat, urine, caffeine, pharma products – and makeup (8 January 2015)

Date: 08/01/2015
Duncan Lewis, Legal News Solicitors, Cooling off in the pool could mean ingesting a cocktail of sweat, urine, caffeine, pharma products – and makeup

A US study which tested swimming pool water at public baths has found that water in many pools is contaminated with chemicals such as insect repellents and flame retardants – as well as caffeine and chemicals in cosmetics.

The Daily Mail reports that, as well as chlorine in swimming pools, swimmers now face a cocktail of chemicals – some of which may react negatively with disinfectant chemicals such as chlorine.

Previous studies have found that urea, uric acid and certain amino acids – all found in human and animal urine – can cause a reaction with chlorine, which is used to kill certain swimming pool bacteria.

Bacteria and parasites in water can caused severe gastric infections if ingested by swimmers, whether in a public pool or while wild swimming.

US researchers at Lyles School of Civil Engineering and the Division of Environmental and Ecological Engineering at Purdue University say that chemicals from pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) may also be presenting a hazard to swimmers at public swimming pools. Study leader Professor Ernest Blatchley said:

“There are literally thousands of chemicals from pharmaceuticals and personal care products that could be getting into swimming pool water.”

The US study follows on from research by Prof Ching-Hua Huang, from the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, who has developed a scientific test which can identify 32 chemicals from pharmaceutical and personal care products in water samples taken from public swimming pools in Indiana and Georgia in the US – including insect repellent Deet, as well as flame retardant chemical TCEP and caffeine.

Prof Blatchley said the other 29 chemicals might have been present in the water samples “below detection level”.

“And because there are literally thousands of pharmaceuticals, this is just a small subset of compounds that could be present in swimming pools,” he said.

Swimming pool water should be checked several times a day by staff – with chlorine levels and temperature made public on noticeboards by the pool.

“The main issue is that the release of chemicals into a place like a swimming pool is completely uncontrolled and unknown,” said Prof Blatchley, however.

“I don't want to be an alarmist – we haven't discovered anything that would be cause for alarm right now, but the bottom line is we just don't know. Some chemicals are volatile – which means they can escape into the air to be inhaled; others can be ingested or absorbed through the skin.

”Swimmers are exposed to chemicals through three different routes: You can inhale, you can ingest and it can go through your skin. So the exposure you receive in a swimming pool setting is potentially much more extensive than the exposure you would receive by just one route alone,” Professor Blatchley added.

”Many pharmaceuticals that are ingested are not fully metabolised by the body and are excreted in sweat and urine. Urine, I think, is really the primary mode of introduction,” said Professor Blatchley.

“When it comes to pharmaceuticals, these are chemicals designed to be biologically active at pretty low concentrations,” he added.

Swimmers are always advised to shower thoroughly before and after using public swimming pools – but poor hygiene and swimmers soiling public pools has been blamed for rising levels of gastrointestinal infections at package holiday hotels abroad.

Some hotels abroad have also been found to reduce safe levels of chlorine in hotel pools to save money, meaning infections passed via the faecal-oral route have more chance of causing serious illness in holidaymakers.

Duncan Lewis Personal Injury Solicitors – Holiday Illness and Injury Claims

Duncan Lewis personal injury solicitors can advise those who have contracted gastric illnesses on package holidays, at a holiday hotel, or at a public swimming baths on how to make no win no fee claims for compensation, including claims relating to:

• Campylobacter
• Cryptosporidium (the “swimming pool” illness)
• Cholera
• Dysentery
• E.coli
• Giardiosis
• Legionella
• Salmonella
• Shigella.

Personal injury claimants have three years from the date of infection or diagnosis of infection in which to make no win no fee Holiday Illness and Injury Claims – and children can make a compensation claim for holiday illness and injury or swimming pool illness up to the age of 21.

For expert legal advice on no win no fee Holiday Illness and Injury Claims, call Duncan Lewis Personal Injury Solicitors on 020 7923 4020.

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