The Washington Blade - Friday, April 16, 1999
Lisa Keen

The Natural Resources Defense Council issued the report March 30, noting that, among others, "Many people who are especially vulnerable to infection (such as à people living with HIV/AIDS à) use bottled water as an alternative to tap water out of concern for their safety." While most people assume that bottled drinking water is safer than tap water, noted the researchers, "this may not be a safe assumption."

The Council purchased 103 brands of bottled drinking water around the country, including Deer Park, Naya, Poland Spring, Polar, and Safeway (both Safeway's Refreshe Natural Spring Water and its Spring Water) in Washington, D.C.

With Naya and Deer Park, noted the report, there were "No contaminants of concern found in four tests." Both brands made the Council's "Waters Testing Clean" list, which included only five brands. (Also on the list were San Pellegrino, Vons, and Rocky Mountain Drinking Water -- all from California.)

The Council found that five out of 10 Poland Spring bottles had some "heterotrophic-plate-count [HPC] bacteria." The presence of HPC bacteria, according to a report footnote, is a "potential indicator of overall sanitation in bottling and source water" but the bacteria are "not necessarily harmful themselves."

"In some cases," noted the footnote, HPC "may indicate presence of infectious bacteria; data show sometimes linked to illnesses."

One lot of Safeway's Spring Water and one lot of Safeway's Refreshe had no detected contaminants. But one in 10 bottles in a second lot of Refreshe was said to have overgrowth of HPC bacteria, and one lot of the Spring Water was said to have "toluene," which the report identified as "a constituent of gasoline and industrial chemicals, although its source here is unknown."

Of special note for people with HIV/AIDS, the Council report was not able to test for cryptosporidium because the accepted method for such monitoring was "logistically and financially infeasible." Also, the Council tested only 103 of the more than 700 brands of bottled drinking water on the market.

The Council recommended that people who are concerned about the quality of their tap water can purchase filters certified by NSF International (800-NSF-MARK) to remove the contaminants of special concern.

To view the report and/or look up a specific brand of bottled water, readers can go to Web site www.nrdc.org or order a copy of the report ($14 check or money order) from the Natural Resources Defense Council, Publications Department, 40 W. 20th St., New York, NY 10011.

For more information, call the NRDC Publications Department at (212) 727-4486.

In brief ...

NEW RITONAVIR CAPS AT FDA: Reuters News Service reported last week that the Abbott pharmaceutical company has submitted an application for approval of a new capsule form of ritonavir. Patients taking the protease inhibitor have had to use the liquid form since last summer, when the company stopped making the capsules due to "manufacturing difficulties" that caused a defect in the way the capsules dissolved. Reuters said the company has now come up with a soft-gel form of the drug.

NEW FUNGAL TREATMENT APPROVED: The Janssen Pharmaceutica company announced March 31 that the Food and Drug Administration has given its approval to market a new intravenous form of the anti-fungal agent itraconazole for hard-to-treat fungal infections, such as histoplasmosis, blastomycosis, and aspergillosis.

COMBO RECOMMENDED AGAINST MAC: A team of researchers from Switzerland reported last month finding that the combination of clarithromycin, ethambutol and rifabutin has significant benefit in preventing and treating Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC) disease. In the March issue of the journal Clinical Drug Investigation, the doctors say a more standard treatment regimen -- clarithromycin alone -- is quickly evaded by the infectious agent.

TOXO PREVENTIVE AT 200 MARK: A team of French researchers recommended in the March issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases that patients with HIV should begin preventive medications against toxoplasmosis once their CD4 counts go below 200.

STROKE ALERT: The April issue of the journal Stroke reports that a small study suggests that people with HIV infection may be at increased risk for strokes, due to decreased flow of blood through the brain.

MEDICAID WILL COVER SEROSTIM: The National Association of People With AIDS announced April 5 that it has helped convince the Health Care Finance Administration to reverse an earlier stance and identify the AIDS-wasting treatment Serostim as one that can be covered by Medicaid. The federal agency that has oversight on Medicaid previously identified Serostim (also known as recombinant growth hormone) as a "cosmetic" weight-gain drug, said NAPWA.
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