A final report to the president is due in 1995. The success of the venture may well depend on the political fortunes that lie ahead, since the council was established for a two-year term. The standard water treatment practice is addition of chlorine to water sources, a method that prompts environmental advocates to seek less risky, less persistent disinfectants. Water treatment alternatives to the use of chlorine that are being considered include prefiltering, carbon filtration, or a combination of treatments such as ozonation with reduced chlorination. Supercritical carbon dioxide, a highly pressurized form of the benign gas, replaces the toxic solvents that are normally used to extract, separate, or manufacture chemicals.
Carbon dioxide is cheaper to buy than solvents and can be reused.
For example, the plastics industry generated 567 million pounds of toxic wastes in 1992, and one-quarter of this material was released back into the environment. Industry is supporting this research, hoping to replace a step in the manufacturing process and provide safer, more economical methods of polymer synthesis. He suggests one approach would be to use two strains of rats and mice to quadruple the number of genotypes, improve the statistical power, and provide a wider range of physiological data for risk assessment and setting permissible exposure limits. He envisions a crossover between neurogenic inflammation and immunogenic inflammation such that a sensory impulse from the activation site is rerouted over the central nervous system to a site distant to produce neurogenic inflammation. Meggs cites possible examples of neurogenic switching that include systemic anaphylaxis, induction of asthma by food allergies, sick building syndrome, and multiple chemical sensitivity syndrome.