Remember the main slogan used by Jermuk: “Your everyday table water”? Well – maybe its not such a good idea to drink it every day! A large number of Armenian bloggers yesterday and today posted, about the US FDA warning to the consumers not to drink “Jermuk” brand Mineral Water. Reporter_Arm has a direct link to the FDA site with the warning. Jermuk group have denied that there might be arsenic in their water, so now Armenian consumers can decide who to trust: FDA or Jermuk?
Artur Papyan
Journalist, blogger, digital security and media consultant
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Well, drinking water surely cant be dangerous–BUT, my risk of several kinds of cancer
is now tripled because I have drunk chlorinated water for the last 40 years, and now
1 in 2 males can expect to get cancer in their lifetime as compared to 1 in 50 for
my grandfather…Get real people, bottled water is currently greatly unregulated, mass water ‘purifying’ plants have NO PROVISION for cleaning the VOC and poison content from the water–the FDA simply puts the allowable level high enough for the water to be considered safe–do a little research on the net and see–HOW MUCH WEED KILLER
DO YOU WANT YOUR FAMILY TO DRINK??? The most effective way to ensure the water you need is to have your own filter system that removes the chlorine and VOCs and the other POISON you really do not need to intake….
Scott, a quick search turns up that bottled water production is indeed regulated by the FDA, and not in a lax manner as you suggest. There have been some exceptions in the past, but they have been rectified.
Jermuk – or mineral water, in general – is at a higher risk of having naturally-occurring elements, including Arsenic, which at certain high concentrations can have undesirable effects.
There is a level of paranoia among Armenians that this is a concentrated effort by the Turkish lobby to derail any Armenian support during a very crucial period of generally nasty politics. But I ask that the community take a more down-to-Earth view: perhaps the sample source was contaminated and it is not widespread? Perhaps the bottlers have not been careful enough, and frankly this isn’t a far-fethced possibility. Perhaps the FDA is wrong. God knows. But let’s not sound like a paranoid bunch.
Just throw away your Jermuk and wait until it is safe to drink again.
The notion of Turkish lobby involved here sounds really funny at first, but its certainly an interesting idea 🙂 I mean, I absolutely don’t believe, that in a matter like Food or Drinks (Health) US administration could be influenced in any ways – I mean – Health issues in US are such a top priority, that this notion would be just impossible and is totally unrealistic.
I also know that Jermuk, like any other mineral, should not be used on a daily basis: most of the medicine we take could kill if taken every day, and I think that is an important failure of the Jermuk Groups marketing policy. They should make it expensive and sell less, rather then try to sell it as the product it isn’t: every day drinking mineral water that is. But then – its all about production, market, competition and urge to sell more, isn’t it?
And let’s not get paranoid here – after all Jermuk is our Armenian brand and we ought to think of a way to support it.
Armenia Blog and Martuni or Bust have more details about the FDA’s warning concerning Jermuk.
If it takes Turkish lobby to let the Armenian people know that it is dangerous to drink Jermuk, then we should thank them, since our governmental agencies instead of conducting tests and certifications are busy with taking bribes…
I was looking for alternative viewpoints on the Jermuk issue – and there – I’ve found some 😀 Hakob Gevorgian has posted his thoughts on the issue: http://gevorgian.com/hakob/archives/2007/03/11/00/08/17/
Hi Observer,
Thanks for the link. My post on Jermuk is anecdotical…and I hope you liked the title and the first paragraph of the post — that is the quoted text from Doctor Jivago… 🙂
I absolutely loved the start 🙂 […]not with arsenic, as the dishwasher thought, but with iodine[…]
[…] to prove that their mineral water is not dangerous, following the warning by US FDA, that the level of arsenic contained in Jermuk imported to US could cause cancer. “Armenians Paranoid About Jermuk”, according to the […]