Dr. Ernest Blatchley

And some of the products of those reactions are unpleasant and have potentially adverse human health effects.

Perhaps the sentinel compound among the various compounds that we and others have identified is a chemical called trichloramine.

You're probably familiar with this chemical, at least by its smell.

So if you're ever around an indoor swimming pool, especially one that's not operated particularly well, there's oftentimes this sort of chlorine odor that most people will recognize.

That is, in fact, largely attributable to trichloramine.

You're smelling a product of chlorination.

Exactly.

Exactly.

So that chemical is interesting because it's volatile, which means it has the ability to escape from the liquid phase to the gas phase.

So it's going to end up in the air that we breathe.

It is a chemical that's known to cause problems for the human respiratory system, and it also causes things like corrosion.

So if you look around in an indoor pool, oftentimes you'll see stainless steel that is, well, stained.

It's been corroded, and much of that corrosion is attributable to trichloramine.

So think about a chemical that has the ability to corrode stainless steel.

probably not going to do nice things to your lungs either.

Yeah, there are some people whose skin is irritated by chloramines broadly, including trichloramine.

But that it's a pretty, I don't honestly know the sort of medical explanation for this, but that's pretty variable among people.

And it's probably some sort of allergic response or something like that.

But not everyone reacts that way.

If you can smell it, well, okay, so the human sense of smell is also pretty variable among people.