Report: Pool chemicals cause thousands of illnesses

Chlorine, the chemical used to disinfect swimming pools, has already been linked to asthma (spend more than an hour per week swimming, indoors or out, and a child’s risk of asthma increases 10-fold).

Inhaling fumes is only one of the ways chlorine pool chemicals can cause health problems, as a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report demonstrates.

In the past 20+ years in New York, one of the few states that requires reporting of health incidents at public pools, the vast majority (94%) of reported illnesses were respiratory. Most of these incidents were caused by the mixing of chlorine with an acid, which creates highly hazardous chlorine gas.