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2010-10-14 Robert Metcalf PhD Health Benefits of Portable Microbiology Laboratories and Water Purification World-Wide

An Interview with Dr. Bob Metcalf

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KIRK HAMILTON: Hi, my name is Kirk Hamilton, your host of Staying Healthy Today, and our mission is simple: To provide you credible usable health information from interviews and our educational resources to help you Stay and Be Well in the busy modern world. Please take a few moments before or after listening to this interview to browse through the Prescription2000.com website, the home of Staying Healthy Today Radio, for our free educational services.

Today's show topic is the "Health Benefits of Water Testing Using the Portable Microbiology Laboratory, Solar Water Pasteurization and Solar Cooking." Our guest today is an old friend, Dr. Bob Metcalf, a microbiologist and professor of biology sciences at California State University Sacramento, who I interviewed over a year ago in August of 2009. Since 1978 he has been actively involved with solar cooking and solar water pasteurization projects including leading many international workshops. In recent years Dr. Metcalf has turned his attention to water quality issues in developing countries. He has assembled a portable microbiology laboratory that enables world-class microbiology to be performed anywhere, anytime involving community members in the testing and interpretation of the results. This provides the missing link in water and sanitation programs and could improve health in developing countries.

So it is with great pleasure I have Dr. Metcalf back, so thanks so much for coming in today.
DR. ROBERT METCALF: Well thank you for having me Kirk.

KIRK HAMILTON: It's always a pleasure to have you three feet away from me instead of over the phone like most of my interviews. So as I recall last year when we interviewed you something stuck in my mind. You said the first time you went to Bolivia you had to bring the water all the way back to test it here at CSUS, I believe, and now I don't know how many years later, twenty, thirty years later you can bring it to the community (to be tested). That just seems wonderful.

DR. ROBERT METCALF: Well it's really important also because diseases from contaminated water cause so many health problems in developing countries. And a country like Kenya it's estimated that 40% of hospital admissions are the result of unsafe water and lack of sanitation. And back in 1987 when I went to Bolivia, there were no easy tests to do to see if the water's contaminated and that was very frustrating. But then over the next several years there are two tests which have come out that enable water testing in developing countries. And I put them together then in a portable microbiology laboratory. And just this last July, then I was out in communities showing people how they themselves could test water and to perform these tests and interpret these tests.
KIRK HAMILTON: Did you see the need then? I know you brought solar cookers a little bit earlier than that, or you're involved a little bit earlier than that. Did you see the need for testing immediately, or did it kind of evolve in your thinking?

DR. ROBERT METCALF: That was right there immediately when I was up at Lake Titicaca and I didn't know if the water was safe. I didn't know the water that we were drinking was safe. And I couldn't test it. And that's because the tests available at that time were just too cumbersome to do. You needed incubators, you needed laboratories, you needed test tubes. So that was very frustrating.

KIRK HAMILTON: Well what happens now? I remember in the last interview you talked about even Peace Corps volunteers they didn't really have a way to test the water, so what were people doing before you came up with this idea in recent years?

DR. ROBERT METCALF: That's the problem. They're doing nothing and all the international organizations are doing nothing. And when I was visiting the Ministry of Water and the Ministry of Public Health in Kenya, although water problems are pervasive throughout the country, they were paralyzed because they were only thinking that you had to do these expensive tests that required incubators, laboratories, and they couldn't do them.

KIRK HAMILTON: You know it just, it seems, maybe I , maybe you have a stroke of genius inside of you, but it seems incredible to me that no one would have thought of evolving it since that time. So you're the first to come up with this idea of a portable, in-house so to speak, or in-community laboratory?

DR. ROBERT METCALF: That's right, although I didn't develop the test but I put them together. And I had the opportunity then because of solar cooking and my knowledge of that, to get to places where I really need to do microbiology and what is available out there that I can use. And that's where then in 1988 this first test came out, and just to explain the strategy for water testing, what we're looking for is an indicator of fecal contamination, that's the bacterium Escherichia coli. And so if we find E. coli in water that's an indication of recent fecal contamination and that water is not safe to drink. And you and I carry lots of E. coli and everybody listening carries lots of E. coli in their large intestine. They're usually friendly organisms, but they don't grow out in the environment. And so when people defecate those bacteria die off slowly, but not as quickly as typhoid or cholera or other disease bacteria, and then we can also test them. So because of that for over a hundred years we've looked for E. coli, and the previous tests then were just for a group, that not E. coli specific. But there is the discovery then that E. coli has a specific enzyme or a key that cannot unlock food sources that other environmental bacteria can't unlock and that's the basis then that food sources for that enzyme are in these two tests. So now I was able to do water testing. And how much E. coli represents what disease level and risk level. And according to World Health Organization if you have no E. coli in 10 milliliters there's a low risk of disease. So that's what we want everybody drinking. And this first test I use then is called the Coli Alert test. It's the way water is tested throughout the developed world. In the U.S. we have to test 100 ml to make sure no E. coli is in it, but they also produce it in a 10 ml tube with a little bit of powder in it. And all you have to do is add 10 milliliters of water to it, mix it up, and then let the bacteria grow for 12 to16 hours and then see if you have E. coli in that test.

KIRK HAMILTON: Didn't you develop this with your students at the university (CSUS)? Didn't you bring back these ideas and work on it here literally five minutes away?

DR. ROBERT METCALF: What I particularly worked on is if the water's not safe to drink how can you make it safe to drink and using water pasteurization. And most people will say oh yeah you have to boil water to make it safe to drink, but being a food microbiologist I know that, well you don't have to boil milk. Fifteen seconds at 160 Fahrenheit will kill off the germs in milk and if you heat water to 65 Celsius or 149 degrees Fahrenheit you will pasteurize the water and make it safe to drink. So that's what I was particularly developing there, and then I put this first test, the Coli Alert test together with a second test, because if you have E. coli in water, if you have 1 to 10 E. coli cells in 1 ml, that's a high risk of disease. If you have more than 10 E. coli cells in 1 ml that's a very high risk of disease.

KIRK HAMILTON: Let's go to the community then. So you go to a community in Africa and you want to teach them how to use this. How do you do that? How long does it take? And it seems - do you do it in a couple of hour seminar or how do you do it?

DR. ROBERT METCALF: Well, what I'll do is we gather people there and I assume they don't know anything about bacteria. And how can something as invisible and tiny as a bacterium cause a problem. So we go over bacteria size and then how they grow. And what bacteria do with good temperature and food is they can double their population about every half hour. And if you go from 1 to 2 to 4 to 8 to sixteen, thirty-two, sixty-four, ten doublings, you're at a thousand, ten more doublings, twenty doublings, you're at a million, thirty doublings, you're at a billion, and then those invisible cells form colonies on things. And that's why those invisible organisms then, they get in a situation where they can grow like in one's body where they can grow in your intestine to billions, they can cause disease.

KIRK HAMILTON: And what's that time frame to go to let's say...into the billions?

DR. ROBERT METCALF: Um, with E. coli bacteria with good food and temperatures it takes about a half an hour a doubling. So it would take fifteen hours once the bacteria get growing to go from nothing to billions.

KIRK HAMILTON: So do you then - are you demonstrating that to them, for them to get a visual or are you going to test the water when you go and do this?

DR. ROBERT METCALF: We do the...I will draw one cell dividing into two, to four, to eight. We do the math. We have everybody doing the math so they see, oh that's easy. I can understand how to do that, that this tiny invisible organism could get to a billion cells. That then we could see something by that whole collection of cells.

KIRK HAMILTON: Are these people in your seminar, are they lay people, are they public health officials in this village, are homemakers coming? Who's coming to this?

DR. ROBERT METCALF: Well they're all types and they're people that just, that don't have any background in microbiology or sometimes they do. But to explain how an invisible cell can get to billions, and then we're going to be looking for E. coli, and it's got this key that's gonna cause the changes in the Coli Alert tube, and then the other tube that I have, the other test is 1 ml, and it's called a petri film that the 3M Company makes. And this is a marvelous device. It's just a piece of cardboard with some nutrients on it and a clear plastic film on top of it. And what you do is lift up that film and add 1 ml of water to that circle of nutrients, cover it up, let bacteria grow and then we're going to look for E. coli. Bacteria from the environment will have red colonies when they develop and get up to millions and billions of cells. And if we have E. coli, "Oh my gosh it's a blue colony," and then people are recognizing those blue colonies are bacteria that came from feces. They shouldn't be in water that we're drinking.

KIRK HAMILTON: I wish you could see the visual, but I can see the blue colonies so I can be a bacteriologist for a day or two even though I didn't do very well at that in college. So how long did that take to grow, that one to get to where it was right there?

DR. ROBERT METCALF: Well it takes about a million cells for one cell to start growing on a petri film or a petri dish, you need about a million cells. That's twenty doublings. So that'd take maybe about 10 to 12 hours before you start to see a colony. And then as the colony gets bigger and bigger as it does here in the next five or six hours. So within 12 to 18 hours you're going to see the development then of these visible colonies.

KIRK HAMILTON: So did you do - you do this at the beginning of your workshop or is this just the testing part?

DR. ROBERT METCALF: No that's what we do, that we talk about the tests we're gonna do, why we're gonna do them, that we're looking for E. coli, the significance of the counts of E. coli we get. And then we have people set up their tests and I have them do a Coli Alert test, and with a sterile pipette then we show how to take the cap off of that tube carefully so they're actually doing microbiology. Even though you're in a very poor village with no electricity and running water there, but you're having them do that. You have them then show them how to inoculate the petri film with 1 ml. How to do that carefully. And my goodness at the end of the workshop then we might have say a dozen water samples we've tested. Well we don't know what the results are of that because we gotta let the bacteria grow. Now everybody's gotta keep those bacteria warm so we put the tubes in petri films close to our body and then the next morning we come back and we've got the results. And they put a chart up on the - everybody to look at for about this is the water source and what are our results.

KIRK HAMILTON: So this is day two of the seminar.

DR. ROBERT METCALF: Day two. They've set up the tests on day one knowing nothing. Now they've done the microbiology and now they're interpreting the tests. Does the E. coli Alert Test, does it fluoresce blue when we shine a ultraviolet light on it of E. coli? Are there blue colonies on the petri film that came from feces? And the understanding the teaching level of these with the community is there was nothing there the day before but now, I understand. I do the math. 2, 4, 8 -

KIRK HAMILTON: So we're talking to Robrt eMetcalf, microbiologist from Cal State University Sacramento about the portable microbiology laboratory and water purification. So you get this knowledge. Now they're gonna go purify their water. Is that the next step or did I miss an interim part?

DR. ROBERT METCALF: No, that's very correct. Because they first have done the assessment of water sources, some might be ponds, some might be streams, some shallow wells, some might be pumps, protected pumps, and now we got the results. And if there are some of those sources that are high risk levels well people now know I can't drink that water like that. I have to find a safe source and, or else, I have to do something to the water and we give people two options then of how to treat their water.

KIRK HAMILTON: Then the water that didn't grow a significant number of colonies is fine to drink.

DR. ROBERT METCALF: That's a low risk at the time we sampled the water.

KIRK HAMILTON: Right.

DR. ROBERT METCALF: And if it's something like a well protected pump, then we will leave the water testing materials so that the community can check to make sure in two weeks from now does the water level go down or go up? Are there changes on it so that they themselves now can do the monitoring? You don't have to call up somebody with a white lab coat to come out and do the tests.

KIRK HAMILTON: It would seem to me that the question mark I'd have in my mind is how do you know - how frequent do you test things to know if they are going to stay the same? I mean does like a running stream, do you test running stream water? Do you test a pond? How do you - I mean is there a different way to test, or frequency to test those different water sources?

DR. ROBERT METCALF: That's, it depends on the source. And quite often the streams, the ponds, the shallow wells that I've tested near Lake Victoria are always heavily contaminated. And for that then, well you might come back and a new group of people, let's just do these tests, and "Oh my gosh" we've got 20 E. coli on this petri film. That's a high risk of disease. And it would be the water sources then that don't have E. coli, no E. coli on that 10 ml Coli Alert test. That's what we want to keep checking. And your question's a good one. And I'll say well why don't you test it starting maybe every week, and at different times of the year and maybe you could see if there are some times, when say the rains come or the rains don't come, when you need to test it. And I've given you the tests and now you and the community, why don't you do the - figure out when the frequency of testing is most appropriate.

KIRK HAMILTON: So once they have the kit, what's the relative cost for that? Obviously it's a poor community otherwise they would probably have a different kind of sanitation. So how much is it gonna cost them to do a test, I guess?

DR. ROBERT METCALF: I'm working on the pricing now and getting lots of supplies of these tests and the pipettes and the collecting bag, and my estimate is it's about two dollars a test to either a petri film or a Coli Alert test.

KIRK HAMILTON: But is that not - that's a lot of money to someone in Kenya possibly, correct?

DR. ROBERT METCALF: That might be a lot of money. But then I also ask what's the cost of not testing the water and the dysentery diseases people get. And if you're talking about then a public health agency, okay for $50.00, you could do 25 water tests and you do it with the community. And the community then is responsible for it, so you don't have to have other staff members after they've been educated.

KIRK HAMILTON: So why wouldn't you - this is a simple question - why wouldn't you just purify all the water irregardless of the testing?

DR. ROBERT METCALF: Well because that's costly and some of those - if you have a good water source, you want to protect it. And what these tests have also done, when water sources are not safe people start asking, "Well how did it get contaminated?" And, well they're the ones that get it contaminated. Is there open defecation that they have that then, that when the rains come it washes the water into their systems? And it gets the community then, because you've educated them about basic microbiology. Now it's enabled the community to start thinking about how can we then get, and or maintain our good water sources. What can we do to this? And it's now a community discussion and not some outside group that comes in, or a public health officer that hardly ever visits and starts giving lectures on things.

KIRK HAMILTON: A question. I know you said human feces, E. coli. I got that. How about animal feces? Is there -

DR. ROBERT METCALF: They got it, too. That's right.

KIRK HAMILTON: Right. So okay -

DR. ROBERT METCALF: So it's human or animal feces.

KIRK HAMILTON: Okay. I just wanted to make sure about that.

DR. ROBERT METCALF: Warm-blooded animals.

KIRK HAMILTON: So get into the two ways, I think there's two ways of water purification?

DR. ROBERT METCALF: Yeah.

KIRK HAMILTON: Is that correct? Can you explain that?

DR. ROBERT METCALF: Well there are other ways like making biosand filters that one could do or using some other ceramic filters, but the immediately available methods that are there in Kenya are first of all using heat. Now firewood is so scarce there nobody's going to be using that. But we have used this very simple solar cooker. The CooKit solar cooker that Solar Cookers International developed. It's been out for 15 years. It's wonderful. A simple piece of cardboard with aluminum foil that you put a pot into it and in three hours it can pasteurize contaminated water. Okay. And then the second thing, in Kenya there - there's dilute bleach, sodium hypochlorite. Our bleach for cleaning is 5.25%. They have 1.2% sodium hypochlorite. Three drops of that in a liter of clear water will leave enough residual free chlorine to kill off the germs. So we also show them the chlorine and then solar pasteurization.

KIRK HAMILTON: Now chlorine makes simple sense. The solar pasteurization, you can only do so much in a CooKit, correct? I mean is it a gallon?

DR. ROBERT METCALF: You can do about 5 liters then in about three hours. So that's a little more over a gallon.

KIRK HAMILTON: How much does the - I don't know - here obviously in the West, obviously we waste water like crazy. How much does the average person or family use water in a day?

DR. ROBERT METCALF: Well we've found in projects that we've been supporting in western Kenya where we give the families a CooKit and a pot, our water pasteurization indicator and a safe storage container, is that if they do that twice in a day and get 10 liters they can go for a couple of days with that water. Now that's just for drinking. You don't give a hoot if your water for cooking is contaminated because the heat for cooking is gonna get rid of it.

KIRK HAMILTON: See I would have thought that in my ignorant mind until you just said the obvious.

DR. ROBERT METCALF: And the water for washing other things you really don't need sterile (water). It's when you drink the water that you're at risk. And so this is for drinking water and if you do 5 to 10 liters a day it can last, depending on the family size at least another day or so.

KIRK HAMILTON: This is a really ignorant question, but it's - it would be a mental block for me.

DR. ROBERT METCALF: There are no bad questions. I'm a teacher.

KIRK HAMILTON: I got it. But if I was going to boil something and it was contaminated water, so I didn't boil it first, I just put it on the stove and threw X, Y and Z grain in there, or whatever it is, it's the same as if you used pure water, correct?

DR. ROBERT METCALF: That's right. If you're gonna cook rice, you know, you can cook anything -

KIRK HAMILTON: That would be hard for me to do.

DR. ROBERT METCALF: Cook anything then. The heat is gonna kill everything there. And so you are essentially, when you're cooking you're also pasteurizing the water.

KIRK HAMILTON: Got it. So you do it simultaneously.

DR. ROBERT METCALF: Yeah. And to relieve you of your anxiety I'd have you do the test before and I'd have you do it after then if we could get a little water out of that rice or the vegetables and I'd show you they're all gone.

KIRK HAMILTON: So what's next for Dr. Bob Metcalf? How are you going to get your mission to the world?

DR. ROBERT METCALF: Well what's been really exciting in the last two years is that the United Nations Habitat Water and Sanitation Group in Africa learned about the portable microbiology lab at the World Water Congress we were at in Vienna in 2008. And I've been working with them and they have water and sanitation projects in African cities and what's been missing, the missing link is water testing. And here I come with a portable lab. I put 25 of these tests together in this clear plastic bag, this gallon bag, and oh my gosh that can transform things. And so just they've had me come and do some workshops for them. We're now in the process of seeing how UN Habitat can order these materials directly. And we're gonna blow things open with UN Habitat projects and it's been a wonderful connection to finally get to a big organization that's gonna help.

KIRK HAMILTON: You need to get a Warren Buffett in here to - so to get a kit out again is how much is it per kit?

DR. ROBERT METCALF: Well the full kit that we have which has 25 Coli Alert tests, 25 petri films, 25 pipettes and collecting bags and one UV light in it, that would cost about a hundred U.S. dollars then. So you have 25 of each of the tests to perform or 50 total tests in that. And you know what a bargain. But in public health water is off the agenda. I just saw some figures of international health going to Ethiopia - $320,000,000 for HIV AIDS projects. You know how much money going to water? $5,000,000.

KIRK HAMILTON: Yeah, with 40% of illnesses related, or hospitalizations related to water-borne illnesses.

DR. ROBERT METCALF: And with water that's just shameful in this day and age. We know that there are disease organisms in water and then people are still drinking that water. Five thousand deaths each day because of unsafe water. That's a scandal. And I'm hoping that with UN Habitat and with other organizations now I've given these materials to they'll understand they can do water testing. They can get it into the communities. They can offer alternatives to the communities, and we can really focus on water. And make a huge impact on reducing the disease burden in these countries.

KIRK HAMILTON: So how can people get ahold of you?

DR. ROBERT METCALF: Well I suggest the best method is, I'm at CSUS, and so my name is Robert Metcalf so if you use This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . I'm working with a friend, Patrick Widner, who used to be the executive director of Solar Cookers International. We're forming a nonprofit organization called the International Water and Health Alliances (IWHA, 4312 Vista Way, Davis, CA 95618; email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it available early 2011). And our goal is then to help organizations and individuals learn about water testing, to provide some of these materials for water testing to these groups, and let's start addressing seriously the scandal that people are still getting sick from contaminated water.

KIRK HAMILTON: It's just so simple. I'll have links on the website when the interview is posted at Prescription2000.com.

So Dr. Metcalf it's a pleasure. I know I'll have you back and we'll see what progress you've made in a year. So thank you very much for coming.

DR. ROBERT METCALF: Well thank you so much for this opportunity to share these exciting results with you and look forward to talking to you again.
KIRK HAMILTON: And I want to thank you the audience for this edition of Staying Health Today Radio. And until next time, Stay and Be Well.

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