Apparently about 40% of UK houses have lead pipes.

Totally with you on the scientific public servants. Several months ago I had a visit from the water board collecting samples from the taps in my house. The lady collecting took the time to explain what she was doing, what they were testing for and how the water was purified. She even gave me a number to call to find out what the composition of my tap water re mineral content and microscopic flora and fauna was.

A few of the medical establishment have some jaw-dropping misconceptions too, I fear - maybe because they don’t have enough thinking time nowadays and just go along with the flow.

Some of the topics you tackle remind me very much of a colleague I worked with for a while who had a scientific/statistical/ biological background. He stayed very much in the wings but many kept medics on the straight and narrow with their publications. Everyone knew if his name was on the paper, the work was sound.

- thanks for the info on lead - I hadn’t thought of that. I wonder how much lead plumbing is still around? There was a little bit left in my last house that I sold in 2000, so I always used to run the water until it ran “mains cold” Hadn’t heard about solder, though. Anyway, I guess this is one of the reasons the water engineers monitor and if necessary tweak the pH of the domestic supply. So we should probably say that:

“Inappropriately acid tap water could cause some increased exposure to lead, which is why the pH of your supply will be one of the many things carefully monitored and controlled by the water engineers.”

When I was reading about “chlorination byproducts”, I was deeply impressed by how much info / literature there was about checking things in the domestic water supply, and assessing and re-assessing risk, and so on. Made me feel quite warm about scientific public servants. Unglamorous work, and invisible to most people, but important.

The problem in some ways is that a lot of the public seem to fall into one of two camps: either they take clean wholesome tap water utterly for granted (until they have a Summer flood disaster and the army has to show up with the water trucks), or else they think the stuff is no good and that the Govt doesn’t care a stuff if “They” poison us all.

*sigh*

Witchdoctor

- welcome to my ranting corner-shop. Very pleased to have you here. You are being too modest about your blog.

I find pootle-ing round the the medical blogosphere very interesting, as some of the blogs recapitulate and expand much of what I hear over the cornflakes from ‘Er Indoors. In fact I occasionally post things on the medical blogs paraphrasing her views.

I do often wonder how GPs in particular deal with all the reality-free “Health Urban Legends” their patients must pick up. I suppose it all just comes under the medical sociology “Health Beliefs” umbrella. I come across enough jaw-dropping misconceptions among the B.Sc. degree students, so I shudder to think what the broader population believes.

Dr* T

- Yes, don’t know when I did my first acid-base titration at school, but it was definitely some time in the 70s… *cough*.

In fact my first degree , also back more years than I care to recall, was Chemistry… though I specialized in bio-organic and biological chemistry, and generally kept as far away from physical chemistry as possible! I remember writing a finals essay comparing the Maxam-Gilbert and the Sanger dideoxy end-termination sequencing methods for DNA, and stuff like that.

Talking of basic science, one of things that has been interesting about teaching basic physiology to the science and medical students has been just how much of how the human body works you can understand with a decent grasp of school Chemistry and Physics concepts (mostly what I recall as O-level ones). Gas laws, acids and bases, Ohm’s law, osmosis etc etc. Hence those annoying tutor habits of saying “Well, it’s really just V = IR, isn’t it…?” Was just doing this one the other day trying to lead the students through cardiac output and blood pressure. I’m sure it winds them up, but as I get older I find that just encourages me to do it more.

Real chemistry…… Mmmmm…….

I love your blog, and unlike mine, it contains so much sense that is backed up by the scientific method.

The Witch Doctor thinks you are filling a very important niche in the Blogosphere. Keep going from strength to strength.

For me, the bottled water story is really a disconcerting sentinal example of how “The Humankind” creep. I suppose it starts of with some cranky observation that is picked up by business men who are not in the least cranky. They then start the marketing ball rolling and huge numbers of the population are brainwashed into drinking the stuff. Then there is no thinking. No reasoning at all. Just blind acceptance by people who are very capable of thinking and reasoning.

Ignoring effects on the environment, individuals’ purses etc, I suppose you might regard the bottled water issue as a relatively harmless “creep.” Nevertheless this fault in The Humankind scares this witch witless.