Sue Z wrote:On a connected subject, this article claims that backcountry water purification is unnecessary. I haven't had a chance to fact check it, but I do remember when giardia was rampant near me in PA and other states in the vicinity..
https://slate.trib.al/LtDYBnR
I read through the studies that were cited in the
Slate article. One was old, and targeted only one area in the Sierra Nevada. That's way too narrow for drawing broad conclusions about the whole country. The second was similarly weak - an analysis of some smaller studies, including one that didn't find alarming levels of pathogens in the Kings Canyon/Sequoia/Yosemite area in 2004, and one that found that an outbreak of giardiasis among a group of travelers in Utah was not caused by their water. The final citation was actually a 2004 editorial on the subject, not a study at all.
That's pretty thin evidence to declare all backcountry water in the US to be safe, IMHO. The absence of solid scientific evidence doesn't let me draw conclusions either way. The author of the article, however, did not hesitate to draw the very strong conclusion that filtering is unnecessary. It might be true, but I haven't seen enough evidence in this article to decide that.
In the meantime, I'll side with caution.