Morris, Robert D. 1956-

PERSONAL:

Born 1956. Education: Earned M.D., Ph.D.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Seattle, WA.

CAREER:

Environmental epidemiologist. Former staff member at Tufts University School of Medicine, Harvard University School of Public Health, and Medical College of Wisconsin. Advisor, Environmental Protection Agency, Centers for Disease Control, National Institutes of Health, and President's Cancer Panel.

WRITINGS:

The Blue Death: Disease, Disaster, and the Water We Drink, HarperCollins Publishers (New York, NY), 2007.

Contributor to periodicals, including the New York Times and London Times; also contributor to television and radio programs, including Dateline NBC and various programs for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

SIDELIGHTS:

Robert D. Morris is a leading epidemiologist whose work centers on the relationship between clean drinking water and public health. A former teacher at Tufts University School of Medicine, Harvard University School of Public Health, and the Medical College of Wisconsin, Morris has also worked as a consultant for many public-health agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health. His study The Blue Death: Disease, Disaster, and the Water We Drink tells the story of the vulnerability of our water supply and the forces that threaten our ability to protect it. His conclusion is, according to a reviewer for The Good Human, that "our drinking water is far from safe … in fact, it is just waiting for a terrible outbreak of a waterborne disease."

"Morris," wrote Booklist contributor Donna Chavez, "put the words death, disease, and disaster in the book's title to warn readers that his no-holds-barred narrative isn't for the squeamish." He begins his story in nineteenth-century London, where physician John Snow launched the science of epidemiology through his study of a cholera outbreak in the neighborhood of Soho in 1854. Snow used statistics and interviews with local residents to identify the source of the disease at a public well that had been placed too close to an aging, leaky cesspit. The result was that the drinking water of the entire area was contaminated with fecal material containing cholera bacteria. The doctor persuaded local city council members to prevent further spread of the disease by the simple expedient of removing the handle of the public well. Snow is still honored today for his role in establishing epidemiology as a major scientific field and for his pioneering place in the history of public health. However, it was not until 1883, when the German microbiologist Robert Koch isolated the organism that causes cholera, that most officials accepted the idea that disease in general—and cholera in particular—could be spread through water systems. Even today, stated a Kirkus Reviews contributor, "cholera continues to be a threat in the developing world, especially when natural or manmade disasters trigger massive movements of people."

The author then moves to a study of the spread of common water-treatment methods, including chlorination and filtration. Both were introduced in the United States in the twentieth century and have become almost universal in preventing the spread of waterborne disease and contamination. Morris points out, however, that these methods also have weaknesses: if filtration is incomplete, toxic organisms such as Cryptosporidium, which sickened people throughout the western United States in 2007, can escape and contaminate the water supply. Chlorination can kill other bacteria, including the one that causes cholera, but the chlorine can also react with elements in the water to produce known carcinogens. "Morris argues persuasively that unless we do more to protect the water we drink," stated a Publishers Weekly reviewer, "we court disaster."

But the main problem with these methods, according to Morris, is that public misunderstanding of "chlorination created a misguided complacency with the purity of U.S. water," reported Tina Neville in Library Journal. Outbreaks of epidemic disease in the 1990s, says Morris, underscore the need to investigate the weaknesses in water systems in the United States, including an aging infrastructure that has rarely been properly maintained in its hundred-year existence; global warming, which can promote the spread of microorganisms that might otherwise have been reduced in number by freezing temperatures; and the evolution of bacteria that show resistance to chlorination techniques. However, Morris also points out that we have the technology to preserve the safety of our water supply, "including," stated a Science News reviewer, "using more-advanced water-treatment technology and making filters an integral part of the water-supply system."