Water used to be so simple. Just take two hydrogen atoms and smash them together with an oxygen atom and watch as a building block of life takes shape. It requires nothing else to serve as one of the most vital substances on the planet, yet we continue to work to find ways of adding to it to somehow make it “better.”
For at least one company, that effort has resulted in a trail of injury and unimaginable pain and loss. Las Vegas-based Real Water is sold across the southwestern United States and is marketed as “the healthiest drinking water available” as it is “alkalized water infused with negative ions.” A tool used in the water’s production, however, may have become defective and subsequently contaminated untold numbers of gallons of water before being bottled for delivery to Real Water’s customers.
Of those who have consumed the water, several young children have suffered severe illnesses, one man has required a liver transplant, a woman has had a stroke, at least two women have suffered miscarriages, and the water is believed to have been responsible for the deaths of at least three dogs.
The company’s water has been suspected of causing health problems in consumers since as far back as 2016 and the plaintiffs in the current litigation include a number of consumers whose symptoms relented after they stopped drinking their Real Water deliveries. Several were teetering on the verge of requiring complete liver transplants as a result of their illnesses. Absent the contamination, however, the customers recovered.
A judge is currently considering whether to order laboratory testing of Real Water samples. At the same time, Real Water has failed to turn over records demanded by the FDA pertaining to water production at Real Water plants in Henderson and Mesa, Arizona.
The FDA and Real Water president Brent Jones have both called for the company’s water to be pulled from sale.
