Developmental Toxicity of Drinking Water Disinfection By-Products to Embryos of the African Clawed Frog (Xenopus laevis)

Water chlorination is a standard treatment for ensuring the safety of public drinking water. One drawback to this beneficial practice is the generation of drinking water disinfection by-products (DWDB), some of which have been implicated as causing adverse human health outcomes. In this article, we report the results of 96 hours of developmental toxicity tests with embryos of the South African clawed frog 'Xenopus laevis' used to evaluate four individual DWDB: bromodichloromethane (BDCM), sodium chlorate, chloroform, and dibromoacetic acid (DBAA). These chemicals were selected for testing based on their potential for human harm and as representatives of byproducts of different disinfection processes. Pub. in the Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, v75 p361-367, 2005. Prepared in collaboration with U.S. Army Center for Environmental Health Research, Fort Detrick, MD. Sponsored in part by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Research Triangle Park, NC, and by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Washington, DC.