On any given day you can find news reports blathering on about the dangers we face in our everyday lives. You hear about radon the silent killer… Asbestos…Peanuts… Secondhand Smoke…Benzene. Whatever news show you watch or paper/magazine you pick up there is going to be something about the killer of the week. However there is a substance that is conspicuously left from these reports. That danger to our daily lives is the colorless and odorless chemical compound know as Dihydrogen Monoxide or DHMO. People need to be educated in the dangers of DHMO for our sake and that of our children.

This unknown killer is credited, by the National Safety Council, as having killed 3959 people in 2003 (NSC, 2006). Where as something as mundane as peanuts “kill 150 to 200 people a year” (Gupta, 2005) and you hear about them everywhere. The average person would think that a substance that could be as dangerous as something like DHMO would be a little more visible in the media but for some reason it doesn’t seem to be a big concern to many agencies. In Building & Running a Successful Research Business by M.E. Bates (2003)

…you should be concerned about DHMO! Although the U.S. Government and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) do not classify Dihydrogen Monoxide as a toxic or carcinogenic substance (as it does with better know chemicals such as Hydrochloric acid and saccharine), DHMO is a constituent of many know toxic substances, diseases and disease-causing agents, environmental hazards and can even be lethal to humans in quantities as small as a thimbleful. (p.350)

What are we to do if the government isn’t doing its part to help us? It looks like we are going to have to the information out there our selves. That’s what.

The first step in dealing with DHMO is knowing where it can be found. Many businesses throughout the US and the world use DHMO for a verity of uses such as in production of Styrofoam and/or other non bio-degradable substances. DHMO is also used in great quantities for the production of electricity within nuclear power plants. It is also used by many as a solvent, which companies just dump into rivers and oceans. They get away with this because the practice had not deemed to be illegal by the US government. Maybe the government needs it to rain down on them before they see how dangerous it can be.

DHMO has been found to be a major component of acid rain. According to the EPA (2007) “The popular term “acid rain” refers to both wet and dry deposition of acidic pollutants that may damage material surfaces, including auto finishes”. If something like DHMO can aid in the damaging of metal surfaces and car paint. Undoubtedly some thing like this will eventually find its way in to the water table.

Several studies have found quantities of DHMO in a surprisingly large quantity of the streams, lakes and reservoirs in America, and still nothing is being done to put a stop to it. Because DHMO is not considered a danger by government agencies it is not screened from the nation’s drinking water; where it is readily ingested by farm animals, thus affecting the food supply, as well everyone who is exposed to the local reservoir. This can lead to many simple health issues, such as excessive sweating and urination, nausea, vomiting, cramping, electro-light imbalance, or even tissue damage all the way to more permanent conditions like brain damage or death.

There have been correlations between DHMO deposits leading to the disintegration of electrical connections, certain metals and even concrete. DHMO in its liquid and its less common solid form, after long term exposure, has been known to damage the structure of buildings to the point of collapse. Every year the cost of DHMO related damages reach into the billions of dollars and still little is done to inform the public of these dangers.

The reasons behind a severe lack of media and or government distributed information are hard to pin down. DHMO is very cheap and is easily used in one way or another by nearly every type of manufacturing company in America today. To say that big business, in this country and abroad, has a strong desire to keep this pandemic quiet would be an understatement. Some major companies have even gone as far as to move their manufacturing and processing facilities out of the US to less restrictive locations in what can only be assumed is a preemptive action for fear of legal retribution and/or legislation somewhere in the not to distant future.

One of the only instances of any legislation being attempted to slow the progress of this sinister compound was in March 2004 in the small city of Aliso Viejo in Orange County California. A paralegal had gotten a discussion about the dangers of DHMO on the agenda for the next meeting of the city council but it was mysteriously removed before the meeting could take place. While we can’t be sure why some thing of this nature would be removed from the public discourse. At least it is heartening to know that there are a few out there who are starting to take this threat seriously.

Since the late 1970’s environmental activist and former Vice President of the United States Al Gore has been trying to spread the word about the huge threat that is global warming. In the past few years he has become much more vocal about the dangers that are threatening our environment but not once has he mentioned the dangers of DHMO. Could this lack of effort on his part have to do with his seat on the multinational corporation Apple Inc.’s board of directors? The company Apple Inc. has its home office, coincidently just up the highway from the small city of Aliso Viejo, in Cupertino and has been know to use DHMO in many of its manufacturing plants.

Several grass roots movements have sprouted up all over the county in response to big business and government’s failure to take this threat seriously. “In 1990 Eric Lechner, a student at the University of California, Santa Cruz began a movement to get his fellow students involved in the DHMO cause. “He distributed literature and posted flyers around campus to inform his classmates about the dangers of DHMO” (Glassman, 1997). His efforts have been reposted in several mass media outlets including the Washington Post.

Surprisingly enough having information about DHMO published in huge papers like the Washington Post and online and even in a several major scientific publication still isn’t enough to get people to take the danger seriously. In the national journal Scientific American, S. Mirsky writes in an article entitled Take This Job and Do It (2004):

…research conducted by award-winning U.S. scientist Nathan Zohner concluded that roughly 86 percent of the population supports a ban on dihydrogen monoxide.” In 1997 Zohner was a 14-year-old high school student in Idaho who won a science fair with his survey about DHMO. He cited the potential negatives, as on the Web site, and 43 of the 50 people he asked thought the compound should be banned.

This shows that there are some people, even if they are only 17 that are hearing the message and are willing to take a stand to show to the world that there is something out there that needs there attention. This does show much hope for the future.

Around the time the internet had started to gain popularity in the mid 1990’s the anti-DHMO movement went global. Craig Jackson, in 1994, started the website The Coalition to Ban DHMO (http://www.dhmo.org/) This website has had over four million visitors to date and shows no signs of slowing in its selfless mission to educate the masses about the dangers of this ubiquitous compound. The website contains a wealth of information in regards to dihydro monoxide ranging from hundreds of uses for the compound all the way to the many dangers of the compound and its misuses. The website has been translated into well over 15 different languages in an attempt to spread the word and has links too many worthwhile organizations as well as places to express your concern; for example the Environmental Protection Agency, the American Cancer Society, and Greenpeace as well as the United States Congress.

For every person out there struggling to do his or her part, helping to combat this global concern, there are several hundreds more that are completely oblivious that any such problem could even exist. Becoming informed and sharing that knowledge with others is looking like the only way we are going to be able to ensure our health and inevitably our survival. Unfortunately with DHMO being so prevalent not only in today’s business and manufacturing plants but also in its lasting affects to our environment, it will probably take several generations to combat the complete lack of proper education on the subject. So who knows how much time it is going to take to deal with and recover from the damage that Dihydrogen Monoxide continues to do to the world on a daily basis.

References
(2006/08/02). What are the odds of dying?. Retrieved May 1, 2007, from National Safety Council Web site: http://www.nsc.org/lrs/statinfo/odds.htm

(2007/02/03). Effects of Acid Rain - Automotive Coatings. Retrieved May 8, 2007, from EPA.Gov Web site: http://www.epa.gov/acidrain/effects/auto.html

Bates, M.E. (2003). Building & Running a Successful Research Business: A Guide for the Independent Information Professional. Medford, New Jersey: Information Today, Inc.

Glassman, J (1997, October 22nd). Dihydrogen Monoxide: Unrecognized Killer. Washington Post,

Gupta, Dr. S. (2005/05/19). Peanut allergy can be deadly. Retrieved May 2, 2007, from CNN.com Web site: http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/conditions/05/18/peanut.allergies/
Mirsky, S (2004, June). Take This Job and Do It - Scientific American. Retrieved May 15, 2007, from Scientific American Web site: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0003048F-7127-10A9-A47783414B7F0000&sc=I100322