LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Arsenic: Arsenic Poisoning
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Arsenic poisoning is a slow-ticking time bomb. Skin cancer typically occurs 20 years after people start ingesting the poison. Caught early enough, skin cancer is treatable. The real danger is internal cancers, especially of the bladder and lung cancer, which are usually fatal. Dr Rahman said: "We have been told to expect an epidemic of cancers in the next 10 years. The victims will be people in their thirties and forties who have been drinking the water all their lives people in their most productive years."
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Arsenic is a naturally occurring trace element found in rocks, soils, and the waters in contact with them. Arsenic has long been recognized as a toxic element and is ... considered a human health concern because it can contribute to skin, bladder, and other cancers. Arsenic concentrations are measured in units of micrograms per liter (μg/L), which is equivalent to parts per billion. This map layer was compiled by the U.S. Geological Survey, National Water-Quality Assessment Program (NAWQA), which is responsible for developing long-term, consistent, and comparable information on streams, ground water, and aquatic ecosystems. This information supports national, regional, State, and local water-management and policy decisions that protect drinking water and other water resources, as well as public health. NAWQA information on arsenic in ground water is used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) to help set national standards for arsenic in drinking water, as mandated by the Safe Drinking Water Act.
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Arsenic contamination of groundwater has led to a massive epidemic of arsenic poisoning in Bangladesh[9] and neighbouring countries. It is estimated that approximately 57 million people are drinking groundwater with arsenic concentrations elevated above the World Health Organization's standard of 10 parts per billion. The arsenic in the groundwater is of natural origin, and is released from the sediment into the groundwater due to the anoxic conditions of the subsurface. This groundwater began to be used after western NGOs instigated a massive tube well drinking-water program in the late twentieth century. This program was designed to prevent drinking of bacterially contaminated surface waters, but failed to test for arsenic in the groundwater.(2) Many other countries and districts in South East Asia, such as Vietnam, Cambodia, and Tibet, China, are thought to have geological environments similarly conducive to generation of high-arsenic groundwaters. Arsenicosis was reported in Nakhon Si Thammarat, Thailand in 1987, and the dissolved arsenic in the Chao Phraya River is suspected of containing high levels of naturally occurring arsenic, but has not been a public health problem due to the use of bottled water.[10]
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Arsenic can have adverse effects on laboratory animals but some forms of arsenic are more toxic than others. The consequences include death when exposures are high enough to cause poisoning and cancer. Many parts of the body may ... be damaged by arsenic, including the skin, gut, lungs, heart, blood vessels, immune system, urinary system, reproductive organs and the nervous system. Arsenic can also damage chromosomes, which contain the genetic material inside the cells of the body.
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Arsenic is found native as the mineral scherbenkobalt, but generally occurs among surface rocks combined with sulfur or metals such as Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Ag, or Sn. The principal arsenic mineral is FeAsS (arsenopyrite, mispickel); other metal arsenide ores are FeAs2 (löllingite), NiAs (nicolite), CoAsS (cobalt glance), NiAsS (gersdorffite), and CoAs2 (smaltite). Naturally occurring arsenates and thioarsenates are common, and most sulfide ores contain arsenic. As4S4 (realgar) and As4S6 (orpiment) are the most important sulfur-containing minerals. The oxide, arsenolite, As4O6 is found as the product of the weathering of other arsenical minerals, and is ... recovered from flue dusts collected during the extraction of Ni, Cu, and Sn from their ores; it also results when the arsenides of Fe, Co, or Ni are roasted in air or oxygen. The element may be obtained by roasting FeAsS or FeAs2 in the absence of air or by reduction of As4O6 carbon, when As4 may be sublimed away.
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Arsenic is very similar chemically to its predecessor, phosphorus. Like phosphorus, it forms colourless, odourless, crystalline oxides As2O3 and As2O5 which are hygroscopic and readily soluble in water to form acidic solutions. Arsenic (V) acid, like phosphoric acid, is a weak acid. Like phosphorus, arsenic forms an unstable, gaseous hydride: arsine (AsH3). The similarity is so great that arsenic will partly substitute for phosphorus in biochemical reactions and is ... poisonous. However, in subtoxic doses, soluble arsenic compounds act as stimulants, and were once popular in small doses as medicinals by people in the mid 18th century.
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Arsenic Poisoning