Happiness, Hypermotivation
and the Meaning Of Life
http://www.wireheading.com/hypermotivation.html
HYPERMOTIVATION
Stepping on a strongly electrified grid is highly aversive. A desperately hungry rat - even a rat who hasn't eaten for 10 days - won't run across an electrified cage-floor to reach a food-source: the shocks are too painful. But a rat with electrodes implanted in its neural reward circuitry will cross the grid, repeatedly, to gain the chance to self-stimulate its pleasure centres. Direct electrical stimulation of the mesolimbic dopamine system is so overpoweringly delightful that the anticipated reward eclipses the immediate pain.
The brain's dopamine system has a dual psychological role: it regulates not just pleasure, but cue-induced craving. Cues such as seeing, smelling or tasting something potentially enjoyable - and the prospect of pressing a magic lever - heighten the desire for an anticipated reward without necessarily increasing the pleasure of the reward itself. An experienced rat with electrodes in its pleasure centers is very highly motivated. A mother will abandon her unweaned pups in order to self-stimulate indefinitely.
Euphoriant drugs such as cocaine and amphetamines activate the mesolimbic reward circuitry too. But they also activate the homeostatic mechanisms of the brain. These are control mechanisms that regulate our level of well-being (or commonly ill-being) analogous to the inhibitory feedback loops of, say, the thermoregulatory system. Psychostimulants activate not just the reward pathways, but neural "stress chemicals" such as corticotrophin-releasing factor(CRF); CRF-1 antagonists now in the pharmaceutical product-pipeline are promising anti-anxiety agents and antidepressants.
Our endogenous stress system serves to minimise, or act as a brake on, the amount of pleasure we can "naturally" obtain in a lifetime. This design-limitation is quietly satisfying to pharmacological Calvinists and religious fundamentalists alike. It is also the cause of immense suffering and malaise. Stress-induced overactivity of hypothalamic CRF/CRH neurons contributes to hyperactivity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) system. Chronic HPA overactivity eventually demotivates and depresses its victims. HPA hyperdrive can lead to a spectrum of learned helplessness and behavioural despair characteristic of some forms of clinical depression.
By contrast, direct intracranial self-stimulation subverts these homeostatic mechanisms. Wireheading never ceases to feel sublime, regardless of how many times the subject self-stimulates the neural reward centres. Possibly - though this is controversial - tolerance to its hedonic effects is absent because electrical stimulation of the mesolimbic dopamine system activates the final common pathway of pleasure.
Experiments with electrified grids for self-stimulating humans to navigate are not imminent. So we can't prove just how powerfully motivating would be the implantation of optimally-located microelectrodes in normal human subjects. Even uncomplicated wireheading is currently considered unethical by medical orthodoxy. Thus the pioneering human experiments of controversial Tulane psychiatrist Robert Heath have not been repeated or refined - even to treat victims of refractory depression unresponsive to conventional antidepressants. Instead, repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), ECT, and even (rarely) psychosurgery are medically sanctioned in extremis for "treatment-resistant" depressives. Their long-term clinical efficacy is uncertain.
Better drug-design is one option. Another is rewriting our own genetic code. Our genetically-enriched descendants may enjoy levels of incentive-motivation that are analogous to - and possibly far greater than - whatever drives a rat to cross an electrified grid as an ingredient of lifelong mental health. Decoding the human genome - and soon the proteome - opens up technical possibilities it would be unethical to ignore in an unspeakably pain-ridden world. For we can potentially amplify, modulate and redesign the architecture of our own neural reward mechanisms. Unlike our bodily thermostat, which can operate only within a narrow temperature range, the homeostatic mechanisms that govern human emotion and motivation can be radically recalibrated. Recalibrating the pleasure-pain axis may endow us with a far higher emotional "set-point" around which to oscillate than the dismal Darwinian norm.
Uniform happiness is no more educative or illuminating than uniform despair. A wholly emotionally stable subject - and in theory an entire civilisation - could get "stuck in a rut", whether that "rut" is a slough of despond or a sub-optimal plateau of bliss. But learning and personal development based on gradients of well-being can be both educative and powerfully motivating. A life animated by gradients of well-being is also personally more soul-enriching than learning based on gradients of pain.
On this scenario, bad hair days in any future post-Darwinian era of paradise-engineering may be merely wonderful rather than sublime. Centuries hence, the computational-functional analogs of traditional "painful lessons" will survive, but not their cruel Darwinian textures. Indeed the homeostatic baseline of even our own (un)happiness could potentially be reset at a level of sustainable well-being orders of magnitude higher than the norm adaptive for small social groups of naked apes on the African savannah.
What's the theoretical maximum? We don't know. Should the empirical methodology of science be used to find out? No research proposal with that aim has yet gained funding. How accurately can pleasure and pain be quantified on a single unidimensional scale? This is disputable, albeit more as a complication than a fundamental obstacle to the abolitionist project. What fail-safe genetic mechanisms can prevent - or today sometimes fail to prevent - extreme happiness spiralling off instead into psychotic mania? We're still not sure. This challenge must be met before we can safely explore germline therapy for hereditary mental superhealth.
THE MEANING OF LIFE?
In future, safer and more sophisticated analogs of wireheading may conceivably be on offer as an individual lifestyle choice. Implausibly, for sure, the freedom to wirehead might one day count as a basic human right. After all, an inalienable right to the "pursuit of happiness" was recognised by the Founding Fathers and enshrined in the American constitution. Yet the pursuit of wireheading or its analogs is not an evolutionarily stable strategy - whether for rodents, monkeys, or a future (post-)human civilization. In the era of mature genomic medicine, when the corrupt legacy code of our ancestors has been rewritten, our descendants may be animated by gradients of lifelong happiness far richer, multi-dimensional, and more profound than anything physiologically accessible at present. Globally, however, it's hard to envisage how individual well-being could be purely orgasmic, undirected at intentional objects. ["Intentionality" is the philosophers' term of art for the "object-directedness" or "aboutness" of thought.] Selection pressure doesn't favour higher vertebrates who neglect their pups.
Over the aeons, natural selection has favoured the "encephalisation of emotion". We've become brainier and (comparatively) more emotionally sophisticated. Raw feeling and emotion typically infuse neocortical representations of ourselves and our environment in ways tending to maximise the inclusive fitness of self-replicating DNA. Most recently, the rich generative syntax of human language enables us to be (un)happy "about" innumerably more notions than our hominid ancestors. Admittedly, the discontinuity represented by the imminent revolution in reproductive medicine - a major evolutionary transition in the development of life on earth - could in principle reverse this long-term trend to complexification. In the post-Darwinian era of "unnatural" selection based on premeditated design, we could, in theory, choose genes that make our children blissed out rather than blissful. But it's more likely our descendants will opt instead to enjoy a well-being for their children (and themselves) that is far more encephalised than our own. Posterity will be smarter. They may even be nicer. The tendency to encephalise feeling may accelerate, even as those feelings tend to become deeper, more intense and more beautiful. Our emotional palette may be expanded far beyond today's primitive Darwinian appetites and their crude sublimations. Thus our enriched well-being may be predominantly empathetic, sensual, psychedelic, cerebral, aesthetic, introspective, maternal, or forms of consciousness unimaginable to twenty-first century emotional primitives.
Our post-human successors presumably won't undergo the agonies of our laboratory rodents in pursuit of such exhilarating lives. In the new reproductive era, emotional well-being and prodigious will-power alike can potentially be genetically hardwired as a precondition of mental health. "Authentic happiness" doesn't need to be strived for. Like a sense of meaning and purpose, it can be innate.
Today, meanwhile, many people find it hard to get out of bed in the morning. Given the prevalence of chronic dysthymia, anhedonia and low-grade depression in even the "well" population at large, such inertia is scarcely surprising. Why bother to exert oneself if the payoff is so meagre? Depressive and unmotivated people are likely to find life "meaningless", "absurd", "futile". Nihilistic thoughts and angst-ridden mindsets are common. Feelings of inadequacy and failure can haunt the ostensibly successful. And the world is full of walking wounded whose spirit has been crushed.
Conversely (and for evolutionary reasons less commonly), hyperthymic or euphorically hypomanic people tend to find life intensely meaningful. A heightened sense of significance is part of the texture of their lives. If our happiness is taken care of - whether genetically, pharmacologically, or electrosurgically - then the meaning of life seems to take care of itself.
Depressives, philosophers and hard-nosed scientists may respond that "the meaning of life" is cognitively meaningless, a verbal placebo empty of propositional content. Happy and hypermotivated people, on the other hand, find the meaning of life self-intimating, written into the texture of the(ir) world.
Chronic apathy, weak will-power, depressive disorders, and the nastier poisonous modes of Darwinian consciousness can in principle be remedied by 1] drugs, 2] genes or 3] electrodes. These choices are not mutually exclusive. The abolitionist project and any post-Darwinian civilisation based on paradise-engineering could in theory take advantage of all three. But each option is still deeply controversial.
REFERENCES
and further reading
HOME
Ratbots
HedWeb
James Olds
Homeostasis
Future Opioids
Nootropics.com
Empathogens.com
The Orgasmic Brain
The Good Drug Guide
The Animal Rights FAQ
Utilitarianism On The Net
The Hedonistic Imperative
Electrical Brain Stimulation
Hedonism and Homeostasis
God and the Temporal Lobes
MDMA: Utopian Pharmacology
Critique of Huxley's Brave New World
Wireheads and Wireheading in Science Fiction
Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS)
Pleasure Evoked by Electrical Stimulation of the Brain
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
Pharmacies offer 'behind the counter' service usatoday.com
In the back of this sprawling drugstore in a busy, nondescript suburban shopping center lies what many pharmacists hope represents the future of their profession
At the end of the over-the-counter products aisle, beneath a huge "Happy Harry's Pharmacy Care Center" sign, two rooms that bear a passing resemblance to a doctor's office offer customers the chance to meet privately with a pharmacist. Besides discussing their medicines, they can get their cholesterol checked for $25 and blood pressure for $10 for 16 readings. If they're diabetic, they can learn about blood sugar meters.
Currently, this type of service is about as common as a doctor who makes house calls. This Happy Harry's pharmacy is the only one of the 75-store chain that offers it. Rite Aid and Kerr Drug, a North Carolina-based chain, also have pilot programs.
Pharmacists, frustrated with being viewed as mere pill-pushers, are clamoring to become more involved in managing their customers' health care. Some professional groups have been pushing for a new category of non-prescription drugs, dubbed "behind-the-counter," that would require customers to talk to a pharmacist before buying them. The United Kingdom and Canada are among a number of other countries that have such a setup.
"None of us went into the profession to stand behind a counter and count by fives," says Janet Engle, a former president of the American Pharmacists Association and associate dean of the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Pharmacy.
Engle and other pharmacists say that the time is right for behind-the-counter non-prescription drugs. For example:
• Some states have laws that allow Plan B, a prescription emergency contraception pill, to be sold without a prescription by pharmacists working collaboratively with doctors. Most women's health groups want it sold OTC nationally, but the Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites) hasn't acted on the maker's request to do so.
• A growing number of states are moving non-prescription cold remedies such as Sudafed from store shelves to behind the counter. Pseudoephedrine, their active ingredient, can be ground up to make crystal methamphetamine, an illegal stimulant. Placing such drugs behind the counter enables pharmacists to limit the amount sold and keep track of buyers.
• Under the Medicare Modernization Act, the government might begin paying pharmacists next year to consult with Medicare patients who take several drugs for chronic diseases. If the program is a success, proponents say, private health plans eventually would begin paying for a similar service.
• Facing generic competition when prescription drugs go off patent, drug companies are looking to switch the drugs to OTC for three more years of exclusivity. If an FDA (news - web sites) advisory panel's vote last month was any indication, though, drugmakers might face resistance when trying to switch drugs for chronic conditions that have no symptoms, such as high cholesterol.
The panel voted 20-3 against Merck's plan to switch Mevacor, a prescription cholesterol-lowering statin drug, to OTC. But several members said they could see selling the drug without a prescription from behind the counter.
Most committee members weren't convinced that consumers could correctly decide on their own whether they needed medication to lower their cholesterol. After all, non-prescription drugs historically have been used to treat only short-lived ailments, such as a headache.
Zocor, another Merck statin, has been available in the United Kingdom without a prescription but behind the counter since last summer. "The behind-the-counter scenario would be a perfect solution" for OTC Mevacor, said FDA panel member Leslie Clapp, a pediatrician in Buffalo.
Convenience, at a price
Dan Taylor, 73, of Wilmington would agree. He has been getting his cholesterol tested at Happy Harry's for more than a year. "This is so much more convenient," says Taylor, who takes Zocor. "I can go in there any time I want."
Plus, Happy Harry's charges only $25 for the service. Even though he has to pay the full amount out of pocket, he says, it's still less than what he'd have to pay if he were tested through his doctor.
Pharmacists' costs are a major obstacle to establishing a behind-the-counter drugs category, says Steven Francesco, publisher of Switch, a newsletter about the OTC market. "In the U.S., the pharmacists think they might get extra business, but no one has sorted out how they are going to get paid for their effort," Francesco says.
James Owen, director of clinical services and professional development for the Happy Harry's chain, acknowledges that few customers have opted to pay the drugstore's $25 fee for a half-hour sit-down with a pharmacist. But Owen says Happy Harry's has plans to launch a pilot program in which insurance would cover pharmacy care for patients with high cholesterol.
Meanwhile, Taylor is satisfied with the service. "I've enjoyed talking to the young man who's the pharmacist there," he says. "He is very knowledgeable about this sort of thing. He then sends a copy of the test results to my doctor."
Happy Harry's pharmacist Michael Capka says the feeling is mutual. "One of the more rewarding things I find about this is you can actually see a patient's face start to light up when they understand" how to manage their condition. "It would help everybody, the public, pharmacists, if there was this third class of drugs."
Legal questions
It's not clear, though, whether the FDA has the authority to put non-prescription drugs behind the counter. Virginia Cox of the Consumer Healthcare Products Association, a trade group of non-prescription drugs and dietary supplements, says it would take an act of Congress. Cox's group opposes such a move, which would limit access to some of its members' products.
Charles Ganley, head of the FDA's OTC drugs division, says he needs to consult agency lawyers on the question. "It's an option we ought to look at," Ganley said after the Mevacor meeting.
Gary Stein, a government affairs specialist for the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (news - web sites), says drugmakers might insist on it.
"If manufacturers see drugs they'd like to go to OTC status get rejected, that might encourage FDA to move to this," says Stein, whose group favors a third class of drugs. "Consumer groups might get behind this as well."
Merck spokesman Tony Plohoros says his company still hopes that the FDA will approve OTC Mevacor, so it's not considering behind-the-counter sales. The FDA, which usually goes along with its advisory committees, is expected to decide on OTC Mevacor by Feb. 24.
Arthur Levin, director of the Center for Medical Consumers, a New York-based advocacy organization, says he doesn't see the point of a third category of drugs.
"It doesn't surprise me that pharmacists would be grabbing onto this, because it gives them a new lease on life," Levin says. Increasingly, he says, patients are obtaining medications for chronic conditions through the mail, not in drugstores.
Besides, Levin says, "despite the illusion that pharmacists counsel patients, that doesn't happen very much in the hurly-burly of the retail establishment."
Vanderbilt University pharmacologist Alastair Wood, who chaired the FDA advisory committee meeting and voted for OTC Mevacor, says panelists put too much faith in behind-the-counter drugs.
"I've gone into the U.K. and bought something behind the counter," he says. Usually, he says, he's just handed the drug, no questions asked. "It's not that rigorous."
About half of non-prescription drugs in the United Kingdom can be sold only where pharmacists can supervise their sale, says Sheila Kelly, executive director of the Proprietary Association of Great Britain, the British counterpart to the Consumer Healthcare Products Association.
"In practice, of course, most sales are made to people who have bought the products many times before to treat self-recognized, self-limiting conditions where professional advice is not needed," Kelly says.
In Canada, the number of non-prescription drugs sold from behind the counter has shrunk to 176 of the 20,000 self-care products sold there, says David Skinner, president of the Nonprescription Drug Manufacturers Association of Canada. "I can't really recommend it," he says of the behind-the-counter category. "But we've had it for such a long time that we've come to live with it."
Skinner says his local drugstore has an enclosed area where customers can discuss sensitive matters with a pharmacist. "Some are good at it and will take the time, and others don't take the time."
At the end of the over-the-counter products aisle, beneath a huge "Happy Harry's Pharmacy Care Center" sign, two rooms that bear a passing resemblance to a doctor's office offer customers the chance to meet privately with a pharmacist. Besides discussing their medicines, they can get their cholesterol checked for $25 and blood pressure for $10 for 16 readings. If they're diabetic, they can learn about blood sugar meters.
Currently, this type of service is about as common as a doctor who makes house calls. This Happy Harry's pharmacy is the only one of the 75-store chain that offers it. Rite Aid and Kerr Drug, a North Carolina-based chain, also have pilot programs.
Pharmacists, frustrated with being viewed as mere pill-pushers, are clamoring to become more involved in managing their customers' health care. Some professional groups have been pushing for a new category of non-prescription drugs, dubbed "behind-the-counter," that would require customers to talk to a pharmacist before buying them. The United Kingdom and Canada are among a number of other countries that have such a setup.
"None of us went into the profession to stand behind a counter and count by fives," says Janet Engle, a former president of the American Pharmacists Association and associate dean of the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Pharmacy.
Engle and other pharmacists say that the time is right for behind-the-counter non-prescription drugs. For example:
• Some states have laws that allow Plan B, a prescription emergency contraception pill, to be sold without a prescription by pharmacists working collaboratively with doctors. Most women's health groups want it sold OTC nationally, but the Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites) hasn't acted on the maker's request to do so.
• A growing number of states are moving non-prescription cold remedies such as Sudafed from store shelves to behind the counter. Pseudoephedrine, their active ingredient, can be ground up to make crystal methamphetamine, an illegal stimulant. Placing such drugs behind the counter enables pharmacists to limit the amount sold and keep track of buyers.
• Under the Medicare Modernization Act, the government might begin paying pharmacists next year to consult with Medicare patients who take several drugs for chronic diseases. If the program is a success, proponents say, private health plans eventually would begin paying for a similar service.
• Facing generic competition when prescription drugs go off patent, drug companies are looking to switch the drugs to OTC for three more years of exclusivity. If an FDA (news - web sites) advisory panel's vote last month was any indication, though, drugmakers might face resistance when trying to switch drugs for chronic conditions that have no symptoms, such as high cholesterol.
The panel voted 20-3 against Merck's plan to switch Mevacor, a prescription cholesterol-lowering statin drug, to OTC. But several members said they could see selling the drug without a prescription from behind the counter.
Most committee members weren't convinced that consumers could correctly decide on their own whether they needed medication to lower their cholesterol. After all, non-prescription drugs historically have been used to treat only short-lived ailments, such as a headache.
Zocor, another Merck statin, has been available in the United Kingdom without a prescription but behind the counter since last summer. "The behind-the-counter scenario would be a perfect solution" for OTC Mevacor, said FDA panel member Leslie Clapp, a pediatrician in Buffalo.
Convenience, at a price
Dan Taylor, 73, of Wilmington would agree. He has been getting his cholesterol tested at Happy Harry's for more than a year. "This is so much more convenient," says Taylor, who takes Zocor. "I can go in there any time I want."
Plus, Happy Harry's charges only $25 for the service. Even though he has to pay the full amount out of pocket, he says, it's still less than what he'd have to pay if he were tested through his doctor.
Pharmacists' costs are a major obstacle to establishing a behind-the-counter drugs category, says Steven Francesco, publisher of Switch, a newsletter about the OTC market. "In the U.S., the pharmacists think they might get extra business, but no one has sorted out how they are going to get paid for their effort," Francesco says.
James Owen, director of clinical services and professional development for the Happy Harry's chain, acknowledges that few customers have opted to pay the drugstore's $25 fee for a half-hour sit-down with a pharmacist. But Owen says Happy Harry's has plans to launch a pilot program in which insurance would cover pharmacy care for patients with high cholesterol.
Meanwhile, Taylor is satisfied with the service. "I've enjoyed talking to the young man who's the pharmacist there," he says. "He is very knowledgeable about this sort of thing. He then sends a copy of the test results to my doctor."
Happy Harry's pharmacist Michael Capka says the feeling is mutual. "One of the more rewarding things I find about this is you can actually see a patient's face start to light up when they understand" how to manage their condition. "It would help everybody, the public, pharmacists, if there was this third class of drugs."
Legal questions
It's not clear, though, whether the FDA has the authority to put non-prescription drugs behind the counter. Virginia Cox of the Consumer Healthcare Products Association, a trade group of non-prescription drugs and dietary supplements, says it would take an act of Congress. Cox's group opposes such a move, which would limit access to some of its members' products.
Charles Ganley, head of the FDA's OTC drugs division, says he needs to consult agency lawyers on the question. "It's an option we ought to look at," Ganley said after the Mevacor meeting.
Gary Stein, a government affairs specialist for the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (news - web sites), says drugmakers might insist on it.
"If manufacturers see drugs they'd like to go to OTC status get rejected, that might encourage FDA to move to this," says Stein, whose group favors a third class of drugs. "Consumer groups might get behind this as well."
Merck spokesman Tony Plohoros says his company still hopes that the FDA will approve OTC Mevacor, so it's not considering behind-the-counter sales. The FDA, which usually goes along with its advisory committees, is expected to decide on OTC Mevacor by Feb. 24.
Arthur Levin, director of the Center for Medical Consumers, a New York-based advocacy organization, says he doesn't see the point of a third category of drugs.
"It doesn't surprise me that pharmacists would be grabbing onto this, because it gives them a new lease on life," Levin says. Increasingly, he says, patients are obtaining medications for chronic conditions through the mail, not in drugstores.
Besides, Levin says, "despite the illusion that pharmacists counsel patients, that doesn't happen very much in the hurly-burly of the retail establishment."
Vanderbilt University pharmacologist Alastair Wood, who chaired the FDA advisory committee meeting and voted for OTC Mevacor, says panelists put too much faith in behind-the-counter drugs.
"I've gone into the U.K. and bought something behind the counter," he says. Usually, he says, he's just handed the drug, no questions asked. "It's not that rigorous."
About half of non-prescription drugs in the United Kingdom can be sold only where pharmacists can supervise their sale, says Sheila Kelly, executive director of the Proprietary Association of Great Britain, the British counterpart to the Consumer Healthcare Products Association.
"In practice, of course, most sales are made to people who have bought the products many times before to treat self-recognized, self-limiting conditions where professional advice is not needed," Kelly says.
In Canada, the number of non-prescription drugs sold from behind the counter has shrunk to 176 of the 20,000 self-care products sold there, says David Skinner, president of the Nonprescription Drug Manufacturers Association of Canada. "I can't really recommend it," he says of the behind-the-counter category. "But we've had it for such a long time that we've come to live with it."
Skinner says his local drugstore has an enclosed area where customers can discuss sensitive matters with a pharmacist. "Some are good at it and will take the time, and others don't take the time."
Thursday, February 03, 2005
Google news - copyright challenges
When users click on the links on Google News pages, they are taken directly to the publisher of the material, as they are when they click on thumbnails of photos. Glitches aside -- like when its computers misfire and Google News runs the wrong photo with an article, or it accidentally ignores an important breaking news story completely -- it's akin to browsing newspaper headlines, lead paragraphs and photos at a newsstand, and choosing which stories you want to read.
With a clean, no-nonsense interface and existing search engine traffic, Google News didn't take long to attract a loyal following and elbow its way into the top-10 news sites, pulling in some 6 million unique visitors a month. Of course, executives at rival online news publishers couldn't help but wonder why they shouldn't just imitate Google's model and pare their budgets to the bone.
As it turns out, however, Google has a problem that is nearly as complex as its algorithms. It can't make money from Google News.
So while other online publishers like Yahoo News and MSNBC earn tens of millions of dollars in revenue each year and continue to grow, Google News remains in beta mode -- three years after it launched -- long after most of the bugs have been excised.
The reason: The minute Google News runs paid advertising of any sort it could face a torrent of cease-and-desist letters from the legal departments of newspapers, which would argue that "fair use" doesn't cover lifting headlines and lead paragraphs verbatim from their articles. Other publishers might simply block users originating from Google News, effectively snuffing it out.
What is fair use of a copyright work? According to New York University, where I teach, it covers comment, criticism, news reporting, research, scholarship and teaching, with several factors considered, including how much material is involved as a percentage of the entire work and whether use is of a commercial nature or strictly for nonprofit, educational purposes.
So if you are reviewing the latest Eminem CD and need to lift a few lyrics you're good to go. If you need to summarize a medical article on, say, arthritis, or a new study on the percentage of households with high-speed internet access, you can (within reason). But if you want to run a business of aggregating news content by running headlines and whole paragraphs of copyright work, you might run into trouble.
And it's not only in lawsuit-crazy America that Google's aggregate news model faces an uncertain legal future. Earlier this year, a court in Hamburg, Germany, ruled against Google's German news service when it found that thumbnail images were protected under German copyright law and could not be reproduced without permission. (Google has appealed.) A few weeks ago, half a world away, Chinese publishers Sing Tao electronic news service, Ming Pao newspaper and Radio Television Hong Kong, a government-owned radio station, greeted the launch of Google's Hong Kong news with a spate of letters alleging copyright infringement.
Which prompted Stanford Law School copyright guru Lawrence Lessig to wryly blog: "That'll teach us for teaching the Chinese about the importance of copyright law."
It's hard to feel sorry for Google, though. In April, lawyers for the billion-dollar search engine company that Sergey Brin and Larry Page founded sent their own cease-and-desist letter to Julian Bond, a British programmer who had created customized RSS feeds from Google News.
Ironically, the letter informed Bond that Google does not permit "webmasters to display Google News headlines on their sites."
With a clean, no-nonsense interface and existing search engine traffic, Google News didn't take long to attract a loyal following and elbow its way into the top-10 news sites, pulling in some 6 million unique visitors a month. Of course, executives at rival online news publishers couldn't help but wonder why they shouldn't just imitate Google's model and pare their budgets to the bone.
As it turns out, however, Google has a problem that is nearly as complex as its algorithms. It can't make money from Google News.
So while other online publishers like Yahoo News and MSNBC earn tens of millions of dollars in revenue each year and continue to grow, Google News remains in beta mode -- three years after it launched -- long after most of the bugs have been excised.
The reason: The minute Google News runs paid advertising of any sort it could face a torrent of cease-and-desist letters from the legal departments of newspapers, which would argue that "fair use" doesn't cover lifting headlines and lead paragraphs verbatim from their articles. Other publishers might simply block users originating from Google News, effectively snuffing it out.
What is fair use of a copyright work? According to New York University, where I teach, it covers comment, criticism, news reporting, research, scholarship and teaching, with several factors considered, including how much material is involved as a percentage of the entire work and whether use is of a commercial nature or strictly for nonprofit, educational purposes.
So if you are reviewing the latest Eminem CD and need to lift a few lyrics you're good to go. If you need to summarize a medical article on, say, arthritis, or a new study on the percentage of households with high-speed internet access, you can (within reason). But if you want to run a business of aggregating news content by running headlines and whole paragraphs of copyright work, you might run into trouble.
And it's not only in lawsuit-crazy America that Google's aggregate news model faces an uncertain legal future. Earlier this year, a court in Hamburg, Germany, ruled against Google's German news service when it found that thumbnail images were protected under German copyright law and could not be reproduced without permission. (Google has appealed.) A few weeks ago, half a world away, Chinese publishers Sing Tao electronic news service, Ming Pao newspaper and Radio Television Hong Kong, a government-owned radio station, greeted the launch of Google's Hong Kong news with a spate of letters alleging copyright infringement.
Which prompted Stanford Law School copyright guru Lawrence Lessig to wryly blog: "That'll teach us for teaching the Chinese about the importance of copyright law."
It's hard to feel sorry for Google, though. In April, lawyers for the billion-dollar search engine company that Sergey Brin and Larry Page founded sent their own cease-and-desist letter to Julian Bond, a British programmer who had created customized RSS feeds from Google News.
Ironically, the letter informed Bond that Google does not permit "webmasters to display Google News headlines on their sites."
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
Google Answers: Plan to make a Personal dating Website
Google Answers: PERSONALS QUESTION # 8: "Plan to Build a Personal Site
Phase 1: High Level Design
This phase is about thinking and writing. This business plan is the
beginning part of this phase. As more time and thought is put into
manifesting this blueprint for the site, details will come into focus
and some changes will no doubt be made. It�s important that the
project is thought out very thoroughly before actual construction
begins. Some of the things that need consideration include the
following. Many of these points are gone into further detail later in
this plan.
Name of the Site � This is a very important step. The name should be
very easy to remember. It should be broad enough to appeal to all. For
example, having the word �mates� in the title would not be appealing
to those looking for a more casual relationship. It would be best to
have either one word domain like Kiss.com or Match.com or a two word
phrase with good alliteration.
Target Audience � The site and advertisements for it should be broad
enough to appeal to all and at the same time target specific groups
(e.g. tech-savvy young professionals). The site and all marketing
should also be geared to some extent towards women as they are still
minority users on personals sites, although this is changing.
Questionnaire: Many people dislike having to fill out profile
information. For this reason, it is suggested to have 2-3 levels of
profile information. The first would be all of the basic profile
questions: age, height, location, interests etc. These are mandatory
and are mostly multiple choice with two essay questions to talk about
themselves and who they are looking for. After this, users would be
encouraged to fill out a detail"
Phase 1: High Level Design
This phase is about thinking and writing. This business plan is the
beginning part of this phase. As more time and thought is put into
manifesting this blueprint for the site, details will come into focus
and some changes will no doubt be made. It�s important that the
project is thought out very thoroughly before actual construction
begins. Some of the things that need consideration include the
following. Many of these points are gone into further detail later in
this plan.
Name of the Site � This is a very important step. The name should be
very easy to remember. It should be broad enough to appeal to all. For
example, having the word �mates� in the title would not be appealing
to those looking for a more casual relationship. It would be best to
have either one word domain like Kiss.com or Match.com or a two word
phrase with good alliteration.
Target Audience � The site and advertisements for it should be broad
enough to appeal to all and at the same time target specific groups
(e.g. tech-savvy young professionals). The site and all marketing
should also be geared to some extent towards women as they are still
minority users on personals sites, although this is changing.
Questionnaire: Many people dislike having to fill out profile
information. For this reason, it is suggested to have 2-3 levels of
profile information. The first would be all of the basic profile
questions: age, height, location, interests etc. These are mandatory
and are mostly multiple choice with two essay questions to talk about
themselves and who they are looking for. After this, users would be
encouraged to fill out a detail"
TheStar.com - Lost bank accounts hold riches, but are tough to track
TheStar.com - Lost bank accounts hold riches, but are tough to track: "Lost bank accounts hold riches, but are tough to track
ELLEN ROSEMAN
My brother Doug heard a CBC radio interview about how to search for unclaimed bank balances.
He went to the Bank of Canada's website, http://www.bankofcan ada.ca, and put different family names into the database.
Eureka. Up popped my grandfather � maybe � with a substantial sum of $918.30 left unclaimed at an unnamed bank branch.
'Is this worth pursuing?' Doug asked me.
After checking the website, I had a few questions of my own. The bank warns to expect a six-week delay when making inquiries.
I called the Bank of Canada for an interview.
Harry Idey, operations manager of banking services, happily told me everything I wanted to know.
What if the first name is misspelled? (Moris instead of Morris.) Does that mean it's the wrong guy?
'A dropped R is not uncommon,' Idey said.
What if the last transaction date is Jan. 15, 1981? How can there be activity in that bank account if my grandfather died in 1972 and my grandmother in 1976?
'It's unusual,' Idey admitted. Bank accounts remain active a year or so after a death, because of security sales and interest payments, but not for five years.
What if we don't recognize the address as my grandfather's?
We have to do research, Idey said, to find any documents with my grandfather's name and the Montreal address listed at the website.
Question four: How do we as grandchildren claim the money?
We track down my grandfather's will and see who the executor was. The Bank of Canada then writes a cheque to the estate, which distributes "
ELLEN ROSEMAN
My brother Doug heard a CBC radio interview about how to search for unclaimed bank balances.
He went to the Bank of Canada's website, http://www.bankofcan ada.ca, and put different family names into the database.
Eureka. Up popped my grandfather � maybe � with a substantial sum of $918.30 left unclaimed at an unnamed bank branch.
'Is this worth pursuing?' Doug asked me.
After checking the website, I had a few questions of my own. The bank warns to expect a six-week delay when making inquiries.
I called the Bank of Canada for an interview.
Harry Idey, operations manager of banking services, happily told me everything I wanted to know.
What if the first name is misspelled? (Moris instead of Morris.) Does that mean it's the wrong guy?
'A dropped R is not uncommon,' Idey said.
What if the last transaction date is Jan. 15, 1981? How can there be activity in that bank account if my grandfather died in 1972 and my grandmother in 1976?
'It's unusual,' Idey admitted. Bank accounts remain active a year or so after a death, because of security sales and interest payments, but not for five years.
What if we don't recognize the address as my grandfather's?
We have to do research, Idey said, to find any documents with my grandfather's name and the Montreal address listed at the website.
Question four: How do we as grandchildren claim the money?
We track down my grandfather's will and see who the executor was. The Bank of Canada then writes a cheque to the estate, which distributes "
TheStar.com - OPP targets auto erratics
TheStar.com - OPP targets auto erratics: "Of the 433,000 people in Ontario with suspended licences, about 40,000 lost their driving privileges for crimes such as dangerous or impaired driving. Many are on the road anyway.
'We have to do a better job of getting the bad guys off the highways,' Burns said.
Thousands of GTA motorists may be violating the law:
At least 90,000 Ontarians are driving without insurance; last year, the OPP charged 5,277. About 45 per cent of licence suspensions are because of unpaid fines. In 2004, the OPP charged 1,287 in the GTA with driving while suspended.
More than 80,000 parents are suspended because they failed to pay child support."
'We have to do a better job of getting the bad guys off the highways,' Burns said.
Thousands of GTA motorists may be violating the law:
At least 90,000 Ontarians are driving without insurance; last year, the OPP charged 5,277. About 45 per cent of licence suspensions are because of unpaid fines. In 2004, the OPP charged 1,287 in the GTA with driving while suspended.
More than 80,000 parents are suspended because they failed to pay child support."
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
VideoHelp.com - DVD Player Compatibility List DVP642K/69 is the way to go - has Karaoke and 110-240V
VideoHelp.com - DVD Player Compatibility List: "rob from United States reported January 28, 2005:
Read features:Price:Time used: Rating:
CDR
CDRWDVD-R
DVD-RWDVD+R
DVD+RW
DVD+R DLVCD
XVCD?
XSVCD?SVCD
SVCDSubs?
SVCDTracks?
MP3 VBR
WMA
CVD?$8060 days9 of 10
MP3 long filename
MP3 ID3 TAG
Progressive scanning
DVD-VHS Combo
Multisystem PAL/NTSC Convert
Portable DVD Player
DVD-TV Combo
DVD Recorder
Comments:
having this player for 2 months, i would say that im over the 'honeymoon phase'. when i first got this player, it handled everything that this player claimed it could handle. i played files that ive encoded as well as files that were downloaded. eventually i started running into problems, partictularly with XviD files.
after a lot of research (previous posters on this site and google) and experiments i found out how to diagnose and fix a couple of problems people are having with this player. in no way am i saying this is the 'ultimate-end-all' way to play XviD files, it just works for me and hasn't failed yet.
Symptom: player displays a black screen, no audio, and incorrect playback time
Problem: Must use square pixels
Solution: change with Mpeg4 Modifier
Symptom: Horrible color and pixelation
Problem: using a custom quant. matrix. Must be H.263 or MPEG....not MPEG-custom or any other custom one.
Solution: Either reencode using one of those 2 matrices or press the System Menu button on the remote twice.
Symptom: file plays for a couple seconds and stops
Problem: File is using GMC warp points as found out through MPEG4 Modifier"
Read features:Price:Time used: Rating:
CDR
CDRWDVD-R
DVD-RWDVD+R
DVD+RW
DVD+R DLVCD
XVCD?
XSVCD?SVCD
SVCDSubs?
SVCDTracks?
MP3 VBR
WMA
CVD?$8060 days9 of 10
MP3 long filename
MP3 ID3 TAG
Progressive scanning
DVD-VHS Combo
Multisystem PAL/NTSC Convert
Portable DVD Player
DVD-TV Combo
DVD Recorder
Comments:
having this player for 2 months, i would say that im over the 'honeymoon phase'. when i first got this player, it handled everything that this player claimed it could handle. i played files that ive encoded as well as files that were downloaded. eventually i started running into problems, partictularly with XviD files.
after a lot of research (previous posters on this site and google) and experiments i found out how to diagnose and fix a couple of problems people are having with this player. in no way am i saying this is the 'ultimate-end-all' way to play XviD files, it just works for me and hasn't failed yet.
Symptom: player displays a black screen, no audio, and incorrect playback time
Problem: Must use square pixels
Solution: change with Mpeg4 Modifier
Symptom: Horrible color and pixelation
Problem: using a custom quant. matrix. Must be H.263 or MPEG....not MPEG-custom or any other custom one.
Solution: Either reencode using one of those 2 matrices or press the System Menu button on the remote twice.
Symptom: file plays for a couple seconds and stops
Problem: File is using GMC warp points as found out through MPEG4 Modifier"
NRDC: Bottled Water: Pure Drink or Pure Hype?
NRDC: Bottled Water: Pure Drink or Pure Hype?: "Bottled Water
Pure Drink or Pure Hype? "
PRINCIPAL FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Americans increasingly are turning to bottled water, making it a $4 billion-a-year business in the United States. [1] Millions of us are willing to pay 240 to over 10,000 times more per gallon for bottled water than we do for tap water -- though we probably rarely think of it that way. [2] However, some bottled water contains bacterial contaminants, and several brands of bottled water contain synthetic organic chemicals (such as industrial solvents, chemicals from plastic, or trihalomethanes -- the by-products of the chemical reaction between chlorine and organic matter in water) or inorganic contaminants (such as arsenic, a known carcinogen) in at least some bottles (see Chapter 3 and our accompanying Technical Report [print report only]).[1a] Moreover, as Chapter 4 documents, bottled water regulations have gaping holes, and both state and federal bottled water regulatory programs are severely underfunded. In Chapter 5 we present evidence that there is substantially misleading marketing of some bottled water, and in Chapter 6 we argue that consumers should be informed about the contaminants found in the water they purchase. NRDC's major findings and recommendations are summarized below.
Findings
1. Most bottled water apparently is of good quality, but some contains contamination; it should not automatically be assumed to be purer or safer than most tap water.
Based on available data and our testing, most bottled water is of good quality, and contamination posing immediate risks to healthy people is rare (see Chapter 3 and the Technical Report [print report only]). However, blanket reassurances from the bottled water industry that bottled water is totally safe and pure are false.
No one should assume that just because water comes from a bottle that it is necessarily any purer or safer than most tap water. Testing commissioned by NRDC and studies by previous investigators[3] show that bottled water is sometimes contaminated. NRDC contracted with three leading independent laboratories to do "snapshot" testing (testing one to three times for a subset of contaminants of concern) of bottled water.
We found after testing more than 1,000 bottles that about one fourth of the bottled water brands (23 of 103 waters, or 22 percent) were contaminated at levels violating strict enforceable state (California) limits for the state in which they were purchased, in at least one sample. We also found that almost one fifth of the waters we tested (18 of 103, or 17 percent) exceeded unenforceable sanitary guidelines for microbiological purity (heterotrophic-plate-count [HPC] bacteria guidelines, adopted in some states, the European Union (EU), and recommended by the bottled water industry) in at least one test. While HPC bacteria may be harmless themselves, they may mask the presence of pathogens; some states, the EU and the bottled water industry have adopted HPC guidelines to help ensure sanitary source water, processing, and bottling practices. In all, at least one sample of one third of the waters we tested (34 of 103, or 33 percent) exceeded a state enforceable standard for bacterial or chemical contamination, a nonenforceable microbiological-purity (HPC) guideline, or both.
The labs contracted by NRDC detected contaminants of potential concern (either microbes or chemicals regulated in tap or bottled water) in at least one sample of about half of the bottled waters we tested, though in the majority of the waters no standards were exceeded. While state or industry standards and guidelines were violated in at least one test for about one fourth of the bottled waters, just four waters (4 percent) exceeded the weak federal standards. Of these four waters, two violated the FDA coliform-bacteria rule (coliforms are bacteria that can be harmless themselves but may indicate the presence of fecal contamination and disease-carrying organisms in the water) in one test. When we retested another lot of the same waters for coliform bacteria, however, both of these waters tested clean. In addition, two other waters violated the FDA standard for fluoride in two sequential tests of samples from different lots of these two waters.
While our testing is the most comprehensive publicly available independent testing of U.S. bottled water, it must be viewed as incomplete. Only about half of the drinking water contaminants regulated by FDA and EPA were tested, due to cost constraints. There are, conservatively, more than 700 brands selling bottled water in the United States, yet we tested only 103 waters. Additionally, we generally tested just one to three lots of each water, whereas often thousands or even millions of bottles may be produced annually by a single bottler, with the potential for periodic (and undetected) contamination problems. Testing by other investigators generally has been consistent with our results. For example, as is discussed in detail in the accompanying Technical Report (print report only), a major survey of microbiological contamination of domestic and imported bottled water sold in Canada published in 1998 yielded results very similar to NRDC's. [4] We were not able to test for Cryptosporidium in bottled water (nor did the Canadian investigators) because the current EPA method for Cryptosporidium monitoring requires the filtration of many gallons of water and analysis of the filter using a method feasible for bottlers prior to bottling the water, but this was logistically and financially infeasible for us to use on finished product sold at stores.
Bottled water recalls and other contamination incidents -- whether bacterial, industrial-chemical, algae, excessive-chlorine, or other contamination problems -- have sometimes been quietly dealt with by bottlers, generally with little or no public fanfare. In other cases, violations of bottled water standards have been allowed to go on for months without a recall or formal enforcement action. Although most of the bottled water on the market seems to be of good quality, some of these products are not as absolutely pure and pristine as many of their consumers may expect.
Comparing the data for bottled water quality with those for tap water is not straightforward. Far more monitoring data are publicly available for tap water than for bottled water. EPA requires frequent monitoring of tap water and makes available on its Web site national compliance data for all tap water systems. [5] Additionally, numerous surveys of tap water quality (beyond simple compliance data) are available for tap water quality, [6] whereas no such comprehensive data are available for bottled water. Thus, direct comparison of tap water quality versus bottled water quality is not possible based on comparable databases. However, EPA recently reported that in 1996, almost 10 percent of community tap water systems (serving 14 percent of the U.S. population) violated federal EPA tap water treatment or contaminant standards, and 28 percent of these tap water systems violated significant water quality monitoring or reporting requirements. [7] While these tap water system compliance data are plagued by underreporting and likely understate the extent of the problem somewhat, [8] without question they are based on a far larger database than is publicly available for bottled water. Moreover, according to available data, nearly half of the U.S. population served by tap water systems gets legally allowable but from a health standpoint potentially significant levels of contaminants such as cancer-causing trihalomethanes, radon, and/or arsenic in their tap water. [9] Thus, while there definitely are problems with a substantial minority of the nation's tap water systems, based on the limited data available there is little basis to conclude that just because water is purchased in a bottle it is necessarily any better than most tap water.
2. Bottled water contamination with microbes may raise public health issues, particularly for people who are immunocompromised.
Millions of Americans use bottled water as their primary source of drinking water. Some of these people are immunocompromised (such as people undergoing cancer chemotherapy, organ-transplant recipients, the chronically ill elderly, some infants whose immune systems are not fully developed, and people with AIDS) and use bottled water at the recommendation of public health officials or health care providers, who suggest that tap water use may be too risky.[1b] In some cases, officials also may urge the general public to use bottled water during a tap water contamination crisis.
As discussed in Chapter 3 and our attached Technical Report (print report only), NRDC's testing and other published and unpublished data indicate that while most bottled water apparently is of high quality in terms of microbiological purity, a substantial minority of it may not be. As noted there, a small percentage of the bottled water we tested (about 3 percent) sometimes contained coliform bacteria -- a possible indicator of contamination with pathogenic bacteria -- and nearly one fifth of the waters we tested contained heterotrophic-plate-count (HPC) bacteria at levels exceeding state and industry guidelines in at least one test. Some bottled waters contain bacteria (sometimes naturally occurring), including species of Pseudomonas and others, some of which may be a health concern for immunocompromised people. [10]
In cases where there is known tap water microbial contamination, or where an individual suffers from specific health problems such as a compromised immune system, tap water can be boiled for one minute to kill all microbes. In the alternative, certain types of bottled water may be a temporary solution. To be cautious, however, an immunocompromised person should buy bottled water only if it is from a protected source, and is subjected to EPA-CDC-recommended treatment to kill Cryptosporidium, the intestinal parasite that sickened over 400,000 people and killed over 100 in a 1993 Milwaukee tap water incident. [11] For example, to remove or kill Cryptosporidium, water must be treated with "absolute one micron" membrane filtration or reverse osmosis, adequately high levels of ozone disinfection, or distillation, at a minimum.
Thus, NRDC recommends that seriously immunocompromised people boil their tap water for one minute before using it for consumption or washing food. If they choose to buy bottled water, they should consider purchasing only certified "sterile" bottled water. Most bottled water has not been independently certified to meet either the EPA-CDC standards for killing Cryptosporidium or the definition of "sterile" water, so vulnerable people must be especially careful in selecting a drinking water supply.[1c]
3. Government bottled water regulations and programs have serious deficiencies.
Chapter 4 outlines in detail the gaping holes in federal regulatory controls for bottled water, and the trivial FDA resources dedicated to protecting bottled water. FDA estimates that one half of a full-time FDA staff person is dedicated to bottled water regulation, and fewer than one FDA staff-person equivalent is spent on assuring compliance with FDA bottled water rules. [12] An estimated 60 to 70 percent of the bottled water sold in the United States, according to FDA interpretations, is exempted from FDA's contamination limits and specific bottled water standards because it is bottled and sold in the same state.
Thus, under FDA's interpretation, the regulation of most bottled water is left to ill-equipped and understaffed state governments. Yet 43 of 50 states have the equivalent of fewer than a single staff person dedicated to regulating bottled water, according to our 1998 state survey. Four states have adopted no regulations at all for bottled water, and the majority of states have simply republished FDA's deficient rules. About 40 states say they regulate "intrastate" waters, but most have dedicated virtually no resources to doing so.
FDA's rules also exempt many forms of what most of us would consider "bottled water" from all of its specific water-testing and contamination standards. If the product is declared on the ingredient label simply as "water," "carbonated water," "disinfected water," "filtered water," "seltzer water," "sparkling water," or "soda water," it is not considered "bottled water" by FDA, [13] nor, as noted in Chapter 4, do most states regulate this water as bottled water. For these products, the specific FDA contamination standards and water quality testing requirements for bottled water are not applicable. No contamination monitoring is required, and only a vague narrative legal standard applies, stating that the water cannot be "adulterated" -- a term not specifically defined and, to date, apparently never enforced against any of these products by FDA. Therefore, the generalized FDA "good manufacturing practice" requirements applicable to these waters[14] set no specific contamination standards. The same is true with most state regulations.
Even what FDA defines to be "bottled water" is exempt from many of the standards and testing requirements that apply to tap water. This appears to directly contradict the letter and the spirit of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA), which requires -- under a provision strengthened in 1996 -- that FDA's bottled water standards must be at least as stringent as tap water standards. [15] For example, EPA's rules clearly prohibit tap water from containing any confirmed E. coli or fecal coliform bacteria (bacteria that are indicators of possible fecal matter contamination often associated with waterborne disease). [16] FDA has no such prohibition for bottled water; instead, any type of coliform bacteria is allowed up to a certain level. [17] (See Table 1 for a comparison of EPA and FDA rules.)
Similarly, a big city has to test its tap water 100 times or more each month for coliform bacteria -- many times a day, on average -- yet bottled water (even at an enormous bottling plant) must be tested for coliform bacteria only once a week under FDA rules. Moreover, while high overall levels of bacteria (known as heterotrophic-plate-count [HPC] bacteria) can be counted toward bacteria violations for city tap water (in the absence of adequate disinfection), as described in Chapter 4, FDA bowed to bottled water industry arguments and decided to apply no standards for HPC bacteria in bottled water. HPC bacteria are commonly found in bottled water.
EPA's "information collection rule" generally requires big cities that use surface water (such as rivers or lakes) for tap water to test for common parasites such as viruses, Giardia, and Cryptosporidium. Under FDA rules, water bottlers are never required to do so. In the same vein, cities using surface water generally must disinfect their water and filter it to remove bacteria and certain parasites.[1d] Yet there are no FDA standards requiring bottled water to be disinfected or treated in any way to remove bacteria or parasites. Additionally, the FDA requirement that bottled water be derived from an "approved source" is no substitute for source water protection, filtration, or disinfection. This rule has been aptly characterized as a "regulatory mirage," since what is "approved" is left to state discretion with no meaningful federal requirements or oversight.
For chemical contaminants, the regulations for bottled water are also weak in many ways. While a city generally must test its tap water for scores of organic chemicals (such as industrial chemicals, some pesticides, and trihalomethanes) at least quarterly,[1e] bottlers generally need only test once a year under FDA's rules. These infrequent annual tests could miss serious problems, because levels of these contaminants sometimes vary substantially depending on when they are tested.
Also, phthalate[1f] -- a toxic chemical produced in plastic-making that tests show can leach from plastic into water under common conditions -- is regulated by EPA in tap water but FDA does not regulate it in bottled water. After some water bottlers and plastics manufacturers argued that phthalate controls would be inappropriate and burdensome for bottled water, FDA decided not to regulate it in bottled water, where it is sometimes found, particularly after long storage.
Furthermore, FDA currently has no enforceable standard or treatment requirement for three other contaminants regulated by EPA in tap water -- acrylamide, asbestos, and epichlorohydrin. Thus, while city water systems generally must test for all of these contaminants and must meet EPA standards for them, presently water bottlers need not.
EPA also requires city tap water suppliers to test for more than a dozen "unregulated" contaminants -- chemicals that are not currently subject to EPA standards but which, if present, may pose a health concern, such as a risk of cancer. Under EPA rules, states are to consider adding 15 additional named unregulated contaminants to this list for mandatory water system monitoring, if they are believed to be a potential problem in local tap water. [18] Bottlers face no monitoring requirements for any unregulated contaminants.
Even if bottled water is more contaminated than FDA's standards would otherwise allow, FDA rules explicitly allow the water to be sold, as long as it says on the label "contains excessive chemical substances" or "contains excessive bacteria" or includes a similar statement on the label. FDA says it may enforce against such labeled contaminated water if it finds that it is "adulterated" and "injurious to health." However, there is no requirement that water bottlers report such problems to FDA, and apparently there are no cases of FDA having taken any enforcement action against any such bottlers.
FDA has stated that bottled water regulation carries a low priority. [19] Because of this, water bottlers can expect to be FDA-inspected only about every four to five years, on average. [20] This is far too infrequent to detect certain possible problems, such as periodic contamination caused by occasional substandard plant operations or maintenance, bacteria from sewage overflows or leaks, pest infestations, or occasional spikes of pollution due to short-lived phenomena. In addition, bottlers are not required to keep records of their operations and testing for more than two years, making effective inspections difficult or impossible, since evidence of periodic or past problems can simply be discarded before it is ever reviewed by inspectors.
It also should be noted than in many cases FDA's rules are weaker than international standards. The European Union's (EU's) bottled water standards, for example, set limits for total bacteria count, [21] which, as noted above, FDA does not. Moreover, the EU's bottled mineral water rules ban all parasites and pathogenic microorganisms, E. coli or other coliform bacteria, fecal streptococci (e.g., Streptococcus faecalis, recently renamed Enterococcus faecalis), Pseudomonas aeruginosa, or sporulated sulphite-reducing anaerobes, whereas FDA's rules include no such bans. [22] Additionally, unlike the FDA rules, EU rules require natural mineral water's labels to state the waters' "analytical composition, giving its characteristic constituents" and the specific water source and name, and information on certain treatments used. [23] The EU mineral water rules further forbid use of more than one brand label per source of water[24] and generally prohibit labels from making any claims about the prevention, treatment or cure of human illness. [25] No such provisions are included in FDA rules. Similarly, the EU’s new general standards for all bottled water generally are far stricter than FDA’s rules, and FDA's standards for certain chemicals (such as arsenic) are weaker than World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines for drinking water. [26]
4. Voluntary bottled water industry controls are commendable, but an inadequate substitute for strong government rules and programs.
The bottled water industry's trade association, the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA), has sometimes been a progressive force in seeking to improve certain FDA controls (petitioning for stronger FDA rules in some areas, for example). Moreover, IBWA has adopted a voluntary state bottled water code -- somewhat stricter than the FDA rules -- which has been adopted in whole or in part by 16 states. However, IBWA sometimes has vigorously fought against tough FDA rules, such as possible controls on Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteria, rules for heterotrophic bacteria, and right-to-know requirements for bottled water. The fight against right-to-know for bottled water is interesting in light of the bottled water industry's frequent references to tap water contamination problems. It also starkly contrasts with IBWA's admission that bottled water sales may have increased due to the requirement that diet soda labels disclose all ingredients, which IBWA said may have driven consumers concerned about diet soda's contents to use bottled water. [27]
IBWA has adopted a much-ballyhooed voluntary industry code and inspection program for its members. The association claims its members produce 85 percent of the bottled water sold in the United States. [28] But these voluntary IBWA standards are just that -- voluntary -- in the 34 states that have not adopted them, and there is no published reporting about compliance. Additionally, IBWA does not disclose the results of its inspections and testing to the public, so it is impossible to verify independently the effectiveness of these voluntary programs. Moreover, even by IBWA's count, many bottlers are not IBWA members and have never volunteered to comply with the association's standards. In fact, some of the problems with some bottled waters discussed in this report have occurred with IBWA members, suggesting the IBWA program is not foolproof. Finally, it should be noted that, as with FDA rules, IBWA standards do not apply to seltzer, soda water, carbonated water, or the many other waters exempt from FDA's bottled water rules. [29]
5. Bottled water marketing can be misleading.
Chapter 5 shows that despite recent FDA rules intended to reduce misleading marketing, some bottled water comes from sources that are vastly different from what the labels might lead consumers to believe. One brand of water discussed in this report was sold as "spring water" and its label showed a lake and mountains in the background -- with FDA's explicit blessing. But until recently the water actually came from a periodically contaminated well in an industrial facility's parking lot, near a waste dump (a state whistleblower informed the local media after years of internal struggles, finally putting an end to the use of this source).[30] Another brand of water sold with a label stating it is "pure glacier water" actually came from a public water supply, according to state records.[31] While FDA recently adopted rules intended to curb such practices, those rules include many weak spots and loopholes (including those that allowed the water taken from an industrial-park well to be sold as spring water with a label picturing mountains), and there are very few resources to enforce them.
Water with one brand name can come from numerous different sources, depending upon the time of year, location of sale, or other market factors. Moreover, water from one source (such as the industrial-parking-lot well noted above) can be used and labeled for a half-dozen or more different labels and brands. In addition, according to government and industry estimates, about one fourth or more of the bottled water sold in the United States [32] (and by some accounts 40 percent[33]) is taken from public water systems -- tap water, essentially. Sometimes this tap water is bottled after additional treatment (such as carbon filtration or ozonation), and sometimes it is bottled with little or no additional treatment.
6. The long-term solution to drinking water problems is to fix tap water -- not to switch to bottled water.
Pure Drink or Pure Hype? "
PRINCIPAL FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Americans increasingly are turning to bottled water, making it a $4 billion-a-year business in the United States. [1] Millions of us are willing to pay 240 to over 10,000 times more per gallon for bottled water than we do for tap water -- though we probably rarely think of it that way. [2] However, some bottled water contains bacterial contaminants, and several brands of bottled water contain synthetic organic chemicals (such as industrial solvents, chemicals from plastic, or trihalomethanes -- the by-products of the chemical reaction between chlorine and organic matter in water) or inorganic contaminants (such as arsenic, a known carcinogen) in at least some bottles (see Chapter 3 and our accompanying Technical Report [print report only]).[1a] Moreover, as Chapter 4 documents, bottled water regulations have gaping holes, and both state and federal bottled water regulatory programs are severely underfunded. In Chapter 5 we present evidence that there is substantially misleading marketing of some bottled water, and in Chapter 6 we argue that consumers should be informed about the contaminants found in the water they purchase. NRDC's major findings and recommendations are summarized below.
Findings
1. Most bottled water apparently is of good quality, but some contains contamination; it should not automatically be assumed to be purer or safer than most tap water.
Based on available data and our testing, most bottled water is of good quality, and contamination posing immediate risks to healthy people is rare (see Chapter 3 and the Technical Report [print report only]). However, blanket reassurances from the bottled water industry that bottled water is totally safe and pure are false.
No one should assume that just because water comes from a bottle that it is necessarily any purer or safer than most tap water. Testing commissioned by NRDC and studies by previous investigators[3] show that bottled water is sometimes contaminated. NRDC contracted with three leading independent laboratories to do "snapshot" testing (testing one to three times for a subset of contaminants of concern) of bottled water.
We found after testing more than 1,000 bottles that about one fourth of the bottled water brands (23 of 103 waters, or 22 percent) were contaminated at levels violating strict enforceable state (California) limits for the state in which they were purchased, in at least one sample. We also found that almost one fifth of the waters we tested (18 of 103, or 17 percent) exceeded unenforceable sanitary guidelines for microbiological purity (heterotrophic-plate-count [HPC] bacteria guidelines, adopted in some states, the European Union (EU), and recommended by the bottled water industry) in at least one test. While HPC bacteria may be harmless themselves, they may mask the presence of pathogens; some states, the EU and the bottled water industry have adopted HPC guidelines to help ensure sanitary source water, processing, and bottling practices. In all, at least one sample of one third of the waters we tested (34 of 103, or 33 percent) exceeded a state enforceable standard for bacterial or chemical contamination, a nonenforceable microbiological-purity (HPC) guideline, or both.
The labs contracted by NRDC detected contaminants of potential concern (either microbes or chemicals regulated in tap or bottled water) in at least one sample of about half of the bottled waters we tested, though in the majority of the waters no standards were exceeded. While state or industry standards and guidelines were violated in at least one test for about one fourth of the bottled waters, just four waters (4 percent) exceeded the weak federal standards. Of these four waters, two violated the FDA coliform-bacteria rule (coliforms are bacteria that can be harmless themselves but may indicate the presence of fecal contamination and disease-carrying organisms in the water) in one test. When we retested another lot of the same waters for coliform bacteria, however, both of these waters tested clean. In addition, two other waters violated the FDA standard for fluoride in two sequential tests of samples from different lots of these two waters.
While our testing is the most comprehensive publicly available independent testing of U.S. bottled water, it must be viewed as incomplete. Only about half of the drinking water contaminants regulated by FDA and EPA were tested, due to cost constraints. There are, conservatively, more than 700 brands selling bottled water in the United States, yet we tested only 103 waters. Additionally, we generally tested just one to three lots of each water, whereas often thousands or even millions of bottles may be produced annually by a single bottler, with the potential for periodic (and undetected) contamination problems. Testing by other investigators generally has been consistent with our results. For example, as is discussed in detail in the accompanying Technical Report (print report only), a major survey of microbiological contamination of domestic and imported bottled water sold in Canada published in 1998 yielded results very similar to NRDC's. [4] We were not able to test for Cryptosporidium in bottled water (nor did the Canadian investigators) because the current EPA method for Cryptosporidium monitoring requires the filtration of many gallons of water and analysis of the filter using a method feasible for bottlers prior to bottling the water, but this was logistically and financially infeasible for us to use on finished product sold at stores.
Bottled water recalls and other contamination incidents -- whether bacterial, industrial-chemical, algae, excessive-chlorine, or other contamination problems -- have sometimes been quietly dealt with by bottlers, generally with little or no public fanfare. In other cases, violations of bottled water standards have been allowed to go on for months without a recall or formal enforcement action. Although most of the bottled water on the market seems to be of good quality, some of these products are not as absolutely pure and pristine as many of their consumers may expect.
Comparing the data for bottled water quality with those for tap water is not straightforward. Far more monitoring data are publicly available for tap water than for bottled water. EPA requires frequent monitoring of tap water and makes available on its Web site national compliance data for all tap water systems. [5] Additionally, numerous surveys of tap water quality (beyond simple compliance data) are available for tap water quality, [6] whereas no such comprehensive data are available for bottled water. Thus, direct comparison of tap water quality versus bottled water quality is not possible based on comparable databases. However, EPA recently reported that in 1996, almost 10 percent of community tap water systems (serving 14 percent of the U.S. population) violated federal EPA tap water treatment or contaminant standards, and 28 percent of these tap water systems violated significant water quality monitoring or reporting requirements. [7] While these tap water system compliance data are plagued by underreporting and likely understate the extent of the problem somewhat, [8] without question they are based on a far larger database than is publicly available for bottled water. Moreover, according to available data, nearly half of the U.S. population served by tap water systems gets legally allowable but from a health standpoint potentially significant levels of contaminants such as cancer-causing trihalomethanes, radon, and/or arsenic in their tap water. [9] Thus, while there definitely are problems with a substantial minority of the nation's tap water systems, based on the limited data available there is little basis to conclude that just because water is purchased in a bottle it is necessarily any better than most tap water.
2. Bottled water contamination with microbes may raise public health issues, particularly for people who are immunocompromised.
Millions of Americans use bottled water as their primary source of drinking water. Some of these people are immunocompromised (such as people undergoing cancer chemotherapy, organ-transplant recipients, the chronically ill elderly, some infants whose immune systems are not fully developed, and people with AIDS) and use bottled water at the recommendation of public health officials or health care providers, who suggest that tap water use may be too risky.[1b] In some cases, officials also may urge the general public to use bottled water during a tap water contamination crisis.
As discussed in Chapter 3 and our attached Technical Report (print report only), NRDC's testing and other published and unpublished data indicate that while most bottled water apparently is of high quality in terms of microbiological purity, a substantial minority of it may not be. As noted there, a small percentage of the bottled water we tested (about 3 percent) sometimes contained coliform bacteria -- a possible indicator of contamination with pathogenic bacteria -- and nearly one fifth of the waters we tested contained heterotrophic-plate-count (HPC) bacteria at levels exceeding state and industry guidelines in at least one test. Some bottled waters contain bacteria (sometimes naturally occurring), including species of Pseudomonas and others, some of which may be a health concern for immunocompromised people. [10]
In cases where there is known tap water microbial contamination, or where an individual suffers from specific health problems such as a compromised immune system, tap water can be boiled for one minute to kill all microbes. In the alternative, certain types of bottled water may be a temporary solution. To be cautious, however, an immunocompromised person should buy bottled water only if it is from a protected source, and is subjected to EPA-CDC-recommended treatment to kill Cryptosporidium, the intestinal parasite that sickened over 400,000 people and killed over 100 in a 1993 Milwaukee tap water incident. [11] For example, to remove or kill Cryptosporidium, water must be treated with "absolute one micron" membrane filtration or reverse osmosis, adequately high levels of ozone disinfection, or distillation, at a minimum.
Thus, NRDC recommends that seriously immunocompromised people boil their tap water for one minute before using it for consumption or washing food. If they choose to buy bottled water, they should consider purchasing only certified "sterile" bottled water. Most bottled water has not been independently certified to meet either the EPA-CDC standards for killing Cryptosporidium or the definition of "sterile" water, so vulnerable people must be especially careful in selecting a drinking water supply.[1c]
3. Government bottled water regulations and programs have serious deficiencies.
Chapter 4 outlines in detail the gaping holes in federal regulatory controls for bottled water, and the trivial FDA resources dedicated to protecting bottled water. FDA estimates that one half of a full-time FDA staff person is dedicated to bottled water regulation, and fewer than one FDA staff-person equivalent is spent on assuring compliance with FDA bottled water rules. [12] An estimated 60 to 70 percent of the bottled water sold in the United States, according to FDA interpretations, is exempted from FDA's contamination limits and specific bottled water standards because it is bottled and sold in the same state.
Thus, under FDA's interpretation, the regulation of most bottled water is left to ill-equipped and understaffed state governments. Yet 43 of 50 states have the equivalent of fewer than a single staff person dedicated to regulating bottled water, according to our 1998 state survey. Four states have adopted no regulations at all for bottled water, and the majority of states have simply republished FDA's deficient rules. About 40 states say they regulate "intrastate" waters, but most have dedicated virtually no resources to doing so.
FDA's rules also exempt many forms of what most of us would consider "bottled water" from all of its specific water-testing and contamination standards. If the product is declared on the ingredient label simply as "water," "carbonated water," "disinfected water," "filtered water," "seltzer water," "sparkling water," or "soda water," it is not considered "bottled water" by FDA, [13] nor, as noted in Chapter 4, do most states regulate this water as bottled water. For these products, the specific FDA contamination standards and water quality testing requirements for bottled water are not applicable. No contamination monitoring is required, and only a vague narrative legal standard applies, stating that the water cannot be "adulterated" -- a term not specifically defined and, to date, apparently never enforced against any of these products by FDA. Therefore, the generalized FDA "good manufacturing practice" requirements applicable to these waters[14] set no specific contamination standards. The same is true with most state regulations.
Even what FDA defines to be "bottled water" is exempt from many of the standards and testing requirements that apply to tap water. This appears to directly contradict the letter and the spirit of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA), which requires -- under a provision strengthened in 1996 -- that FDA's bottled water standards must be at least as stringent as tap water standards. [15] For example, EPA's rules clearly prohibit tap water from containing any confirmed E. coli or fecal coliform bacteria (bacteria that are indicators of possible fecal matter contamination often associated with waterborne disease). [16] FDA has no such prohibition for bottled water; instead, any type of coliform bacteria is allowed up to a certain level. [17] (See Table 1 for a comparison of EPA and FDA rules.)
Similarly, a big city has to test its tap water 100 times or more each month for coliform bacteria -- many times a day, on average -- yet bottled water (even at an enormous bottling plant) must be tested for coliform bacteria only once a week under FDA rules. Moreover, while high overall levels of bacteria (known as heterotrophic-plate-count [HPC] bacteria) can be counted toward bacteria violations for city tap water (in the absence of adequate disinfection), as described in Chapter 4, FDA bowed to bottled water industry arguments and decided to apply no standards for HPC bacteria in bottled water. HPC bacteria are commonly found in bottled water.
EPA's "information collection rule" generally requires big cities that use surface water (such as rivers or lakes) for tap water to test for common parasites such as viruses, Giardia, and Cryptosporidium. Under FDA rules, water bottlers are never required to do so. In the same vein, cities using surface water generally must disinfect their water and filter it to remove bacteria and certain parasites.[1d] Yet there are no FDA standards requiring bottled water to be disinfected or treated in any way to remove bacteria or parasites. Additionally, the FDA requirement that bottled water be derived from an "approved source" is no substitute for source water protection, filtration, or disinfection. This rule has been aptly characterized as a "regulatory mirage," since what is "approved" is left to state discretion with no meaningful federal requirements or oversight.
For chemical contaminants, the regulations for bottled water are also weak in many ways. While a city generally must test its tap water for scores of organic chemicals (such as industrial chemicals, some pesticides, and trihalomethanes) at least quarterly,[1e] bottlers generally need only test once a year under FDA's rules. These infrequent annual tests could miss serious problems, because levels of these contaminants sometimes vary substantially depending on when they are tested.
Also, phthalate[1f] -- a toxic chemical produced in plastic-making that tests show can leach from plastic into water under common conditions -- is regulated by EPA in tap water but FDA does not regulate it in bottled water. After some water bottlers and plastics manufacturers argued that phthalate controls would be inappropriate and burdensome for bottled water, FDA decided not to regulate it in bottled water, where it is sometimes found, particularly after long storage.
Furthermore, FDA currently has no enforceable standard or treatment requirement for three other contaminants regulated by EPA in tap water -- acrylamide, asbestos, and epichlorohydrin. Thus, while city water systems generally must test for all of these contaminants and must meet EPA standards for them, presently water bottlers need not.
EPA also requires city tap water suppliers to test for more than a dozen "unregulated" contaminants -- chemicals that are not currently subject to EPA standards but which, if present, may pose a health concern, such as a risk of cancer. Under EPA rules, states are to consider adding 15 additional named unregulated contaminants to this list for mandatory water system monitoring, if they are believed to be a potential problem in local tap water. [18] Bottlers face no monitoring requirements for any unregulated contaminants.
Even if bottled water is more contaminated than FDA's standards would otherwise allow, FDA rules explicitly allow the water to be sold, as long as it says on the label "contains excessive chemical substances" or "contains excessive bacteria" or includes a similar statement on the label. FDA says it may enforce against such labeled contaminated water if it finds that it is "adulterated" and "injurious to health." However, there is no requirement that water bottlers report such problems to FDA, and apparently there are no cases of FDA having taken any enforcement action against any such bottlers.
FDA has stated that bottled water regulation carries a low priority. [19] Because of this, water bottlers can expect to be FDA-inspected only about every four to five years, on average. [20] This is far too infrequent to detect certain possible problems, such as periodic contamination caused by occasional substandard plant operations or maintenance, bacteria from sewage overflows or leaks, pest infestations, or occasional spikes of pollution due to short-lived phenomena. In addition, bottlers are not required to keep records of their operations and testing for more than two years, making effective inspections difficult or impossible, since evidence of periodic or past problems can simply be discarded before it is ever reviewed by inspectors.
It also should be noted than in many cases FDA's rules are weaker than international standards. The European Union's (EU's) bottled water standards, for example, set limits for total bacteria count, [21] which, as noted above, FDA does not. Moreover, the EU's bottled mineral water rules ban all parasites and pathogenic microorganisms, E. coli or other coliform bacteria, fecal streptococci (e.g., Streptococcus faecalis, recently renamed Enterococcus faecalis), Pseudomonas aeruginosa, or sporulated sulphite-reducing anaerobes, whereas FDA's rules include no such bans. [22] Additionally, unlike the FDA rules, EU rules require natural mineral water's labels to state the waters' "analytical composition, giving its characteristic constituents" and the specific water source and name, and information on certain treatments used. [23] The EU mineral water rules further forbid use of more than one brand label per source of water[24] and generally prohibit labels from making any claims about the prevention, treatment or cure of human illness. [25] No such provisions are included in FDA rules. Similarly, the EU’s new general standards for all bottled water generally are far stricter than FDA’s rules, and FDA's standards for certain chemicals (such as arsenic) are weaker than World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines for drinking water. [26]
4. Voluntary bottled water industry controls are commendable, but an inadequate substitute for strong government rules and programs.
The bottled water industry's trade association, the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA), has sometimes been a progressive force in seeking to improve certain FDA controls (petitioning for stronger FDA rules in some areas, for example). Moreover, IBWA has adopted a voluntary state bottled water code -- somewhat stricter than the FDA rules -- which has been adopted in whole or in part by 16 states. However, IBWA sometimes has vigorously fought against tough FDA rules, such as possible controls on Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteria, rules for heterotrophic bacteria, and right-to-know requirements for bottled water. The fight against right-to-know for bottled water is interesting in light of the bottled water industry's frequent references to tap water contamination problems. It also starkly contrasts with IBWA's admission that bottled water sales may have increased due to the requirement that diet soda labels disclose all ingredients, which IBWA said may have driven consumers concerned about diet soda's contents to use bottled water. [27]
IBWA has adopted a much-ballyhooed voluntary industry code and inspection program for its members. The association claims its members produce 85 percent of the bottled water sold in the United States. [28] But these voluntary IBWA standards are just that -- voluntary -- in the 34 states that have not adopted them, and there is no published reporting about compliance. Additionally, IBWA does not disclose the results of its inspections and testing to the public, so it is impossible to verify independently the effectiveness of these voluntary programs. Moreover, even by IBWA's count, many bottlers are not IBWA members and have never volunteered to comply with the association's standards. In fact, some of the problems with some bottled waters discussed in this report have occurred with IBWA members, suggesting the IBWA program is not foolproof. Finally, it should be noted that, as with FDA rules, IBWA standards do not apply to seltzer, soda water, carbonated water, or the many other waters exempt from FDA's bottled water rules. [29]
5. Bottled water marketing can be misleading.
Chapter 5 shows that despite recent FDA rules intended to reduce misleading marketing, some bottled water comes from sources that are vastly different from what the labels might lead consumers to believe. One brand of water discussed in this report was sold as "spring water" and its label showed a lake and mountains in the background -- with FDA's explicit blessing. But until recently the water actually came from a periodically contaminated well in an industrial facility's parking lot, near a waste dump (a state whistleblower informed the local media after years of internal struggles, finally putting an end to the use of this source).[30] Another brand of water sold with a label stating it is "pure glacier water" actually came from a public water supply, according to state records.[31] While FDA recently adopted rules intended to curb such practices, those rules include many weak spots and loopholes (including those that allowed the water taken from an industrial-park well to be sold as spring water with a label picturing mountains), and there are very few resources to enforce them.
Water with one brand name can come from numerous different sources, depending upon the time of year, location of sale, or other market factors. Moreover, water from one source (such as the industrial-parking-lot well noted above) can be used and labeled for a half-dozen or more different labels and brands. In addition, according to government and industry estimates, about one fourth or more of the bottled water sold in the United States [32] (and by some accounts 40 percent[33]) is taken from public water systems -- tap water, essentially. Sometimes this tap water is bottled after additional treatment (such as carbon filtration or ozonation), and sometimes it is bottled with little or no additional treatment.
6. The long-term solution to drinking water problems is to fix tap water -- not to switch to bottled water.
Flying start to Fifa World Cup sales for Germany 2006
http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/06/en/tickets/index.htmlFlying start to FIFA World Cup ticket sales: 500,000 tickets ordered1 February 2005by OC 2006 FIFA World Cup
Some 70,000 football fans around the world applied for no less than 500,000 match tickets in the first 16 hours after tickets went on sale on www.FIFAworldcup.com. Tickets sales for the 2006 FIFA World Cup™ commenced at midnight on 1 February 2005, triggering an anticipated stampede.
"The orders came flying in as soon as the starting whistle went at midnight. Fortunately, our technical system withstood the initial stampede and proved its reliability. We have achieved our objective of avoiding excessive pressure in the initial phase," claimed Horst R. Schmidt, who is responsible for ticketing among other matters in his role as senior vice-president of the 2006 FIFA World Cup Organising Committee.
Fans from the host country have proven the early pace-setters in the race for the 812,000 tickets available in the first phase of sales: 84% of the orders in the first twelve hours came from Germany. However, the 18th FIFA World Cup has already demonstrated its enormous global appeal. Orders from a total of 108 countries were recorded on the computers of the FIFA World Cup Ticketing Center, from nations as far and wide as Macao and Burkina Faso.
Applications have flooded in at an incredible pace since the bustling nocturnal start. Ticket requests in Europe were averaging 40,000 enquiries per hour between the start of work and midday.
The first phase of sales ends on 31 March 2005 at midnight. "Now we can watch the remaining sales period unfold in peace. I stress that all regular ticket applications we process in the first sales period have the same chance of success, irrespective of when they are received," insisted Horst R. Schmidt.
Some 70,000 football fans around the world applied for no less than 500,000 match tickets in the first 16 hours after tickets went on sale on www.FIFAworldcup.com. Tickets sales for the 2006 FIFA World Cup™ commenced at midnight on 1 February 2005, triggering an anticipated stampede.
"The orders came flying in as soon as the starting whistle went at midnight. Fortunately, our technical system withstood the initial stampede and proved its reliability. We have achieved our objective of avoiding excessive pressure in the initial phase," claimed Horst R. Schmidt, who is responsible for ticketing among other matters in his role as senior vice-president of the 2006 FIFA World Cup Organising Committee.
Fans from the host country have proven the early pace-setters in the race for the 812,000 tickets available in the first phase of sales: 84% of the orders in the first twelve hours came from Germany. However, the 18th FIFA World Cup has already demonstrated its enormous global appeal. Orders from a total of 108 countries were recorded on the computers of the FIFA World Cup Ticketing Center, from nations as far and wide as Macao and Burkina Faso.
Applications have flooded in at an incredible pace since the bustling nocturnal start. Ticket requests in Europe were averaging 40,000 enquiries per hour between the start of work and midday.
The first phase of sales ends on 31 March 2005 at midnight. "Now we can watch the remaining sales period unfold in peace. I stress that all regular ticket applications we process in the first sales period have the same chance of success, irrespective of when they are received," insisted Horst R. Schmidt.
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