Earlier this month, each incoming Tufts student received a free copy of the book "The Blue Death: Disease, Disaster, and the Water We Drink" (2007) by Dr. Robert Morris, courtesy of the Tufts University Alumni Association and the Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service. The book, which is both captivating and shocking, tells the story of modern public water supplies and the fight against disease.
The book's narrative style, a presentation of the great minds that fought for clean water and the stubborn institutions that often opposed them, reads more like it was written by a seasoned author than an epidemiologist.
Dr. Morris' career has featured a stint at Tufts Medical School, where he taught from 1996-2002. He will return to the Hill on Tuesday, Sept. 2 at 7:00 p.m. in Cohen Auditorium for a lecture and book signing.
The Daily caught up with Dr. Morris over the phone to ask what Tufts students can do to promote clean drinking water and become active citizens.
Why do you think your book was chosen to give out to all incoming freshmen? What kind of message do you hope will resonate with this audience considering most do not have a developed interest in public health or epidemiology?I mean, they probably all drink water. But I guess it seems to me that the book intended to operate on several different levels. One is simply to tell people the story of drinking water, which … on the one hand is something that most people don't pay attention to and tend to take for granted and on the other hand is something that people should know about and it involves a fascinating story. MA: RM: And the other is persistence, and really part of the reason I wrote the book is to raise awareness and if you keep doing that, hopefully change can happen without a disaster. MA: RM: So I think within the drinking water establishment the response has been very defensive. On the other hand I do think there are people working in supplying drinking water who have been quite interested in the book. It probably says something that it was the Canadians that invited MA: RM: The whole critique of Aquafina and Dasani as being just tap water…well, in fact, it's tap water that has been highly filtered after it comes out of the tap, which is unlike what most people drink from the tap. So I think there's an opportunity in the movement and in their reaction against bottled water in that it brings people's attention to the question, ‘Where should I get my water?' In fact I think people drink bottled water for a variety of reasons. Among them I think is the fact that they're not totally comfortable with tap water, or they don't like the taste of chlorine in tap water. So I think it's an opportunity to say ‘Yes, we should move away from bottled water,' but let's improve our tap water and find ways to improve the quality of tap water as good or better than what was in the bottled water …It's a much more efficient way to provide clean water than shipping around millions of tons of bottled water, not to mention the problem of making and disposing of bottles. MA RM:
me to speak.
Robert Morris:
But I think the book operates as an interesting story. It operates as a story about something that is important but people aren't terribly aware of ... There's an underlying theme to it which is that in general we tend to take things for granted; we tend to assume things are safe, and when somebody suggests they're not the initial reaction is ‘of course this is safe, we've been doing this for years.
Why wouldn't it be safe?' We've been drinking out of the Thames for a long time; why would you think it could be spreading cholera? Or we've been chlorinating our water for years, why would there be anything wrong with chlorine?
Mike Adams:
