Question:
I guess the industry that states these things are naturally suspect because they sell products to remedy the situation...... am I understanding that correctly? Isn't that a bit paranoid and was it part of an agenda by our media? Do they stand to gain anything by their marketing?

As so far as the insurance companies.... they do have our address and it's not hard to find out if we're served by 'city' water and if it's chlorinated.... but again, life insurance is a lot different than health insurance as far as underwriting a policy or risk

Answer: Let me stress my point again. Any disinfectant will form by-products *if* there are precursors in the water. I don't care if its chlorine, chloramines, chlorine dioxide, ozone, UV, or a combination of all of them. If the precursors are in the water you *will* form by-products. No precursors, no by-products. Well water is generally free of precursors by nature. Any well water that *has* precursors is considered under the influence of surface water and therefore in need of disinfection which will then form by-products (nice little catch twenty-two,That is what was said. Going from 10 cases per 100,000 to 13 cases per 100,000 is a 30% increase. Of course you *could* use just the raw case numbers (which is *not* what is meant by incident rate) and fake a huge increase in "rates" by failing to consider the increase in the population as a whole. I've seen that done on the abortion issue (not to drag *that* into this discussion). Statistics can be very tricky. Both side of an issue can use the same number and, just by "bending" them in such and such a way, "prove" their point that the other side is "wrong".