Disturbance of cerebral function in people exposed to drinking water contaminated with aluminium sulphate: retrospective study of the Camelford water incident
People who were exposed to the contaminated water at Camelford in Cornwall, suffered damage to their cerebral function, argue researchers in a paper in this week's BMJ. Dr Paul Altmann and colleagues say that the damage they found in the people studied was not due to anxiety as had been previously claimed and they call for further research to be undertaken in order to determine the longer term prognosis for the affected individuals.
In July 1988 twenty tonnes of aluminium sulphate were accidentally emptied into a treated water reservoir in Camelford. The reservoir served around 20,000 people and two years after the accident about 400 people were suffering from symptoms which they believed to be as a result of the incident. These include loss of concentration and short term memory, and were initially attributed to anxiety, say the authors.
The research team was made up of experts from the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals, the Royal London Hospital, Coventry and Warwickshire Hospital, Priory Hospital in Roehampton and University College London Medical School. They studied 55 of the affected people in the Camelford area along with 15 of their siblings who had not been exposed to the contaminated water as a control.
The team assessed the study and control groups through various clinical and psychological tests to determine the medical condition and anxiety levels in the affected people. They found that there were several abnormalities in people exposed to aluminium and other contaminants in the Camelford incident. For example, they found that their psychomotor performance was poorer than the team would have expected based on the IQ of affected individuals before exposure. Altmann et al also found that anxiety did not influence the measures of cerebral function.
Dr Paul Altmann et al conclude: "Aluminium sulphate poisoning probably led to long term cerebral impairment in some people in Camelford."
Contact:
Dr Paul Altmann, Consultant Nephrologist, Oxford Kidney Unit, Oxford Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford
Email: paul.altmann@orh.anglox.nhs.uk