(AmericanProsperity.com) – According to new research, almost half of the United States prisons are getting their water from a contaminated source.
More than one million prisoners are incarcerated in the United States and we now know that they are vulnerable to water contamination. Nicholas Shapiro, a co-author of the report, said that these prisoners cannot do much to protect themselves which makes them even more at risk.
Shapiro said, “We need to think about who is exposed and who has the least agency to mitigate their exposure, that’s why this is such a unique population.”
“We see the dehumanization of incarcerated people across the country, and these exposures are symptoms of that larger problem,” he continued.
PFAS are chemicals that have been discovered in multiple products and are often referred to as “forever chemicals” since the environment and the body can’t break them down. These chemicals have also been linked to liver problems, cancer, and birth defects.
The study concluded that there are multiple sources where contaminated water may come from, and there has been testing done for only a few of those sources. The authors wrote that better testing is desperately needed in order to keep people safe and to know that these sources have chemicals in them.
One particular example is a women’s prison that is drawing water from a source that is contaminated by firefighter foam since it’s right next to a firefighter school. One thing that’s found contaminating the water most is foams.
Prisoners, in particular, are in high-risk areas because they oftentimes have a lower immune system and they have found that this could make them more susceptible to getting sick or having adverse effects from contaminated water. Authors have pushed to have testing and to understand the contamination more as they determine what it’s caused by and why.
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