Issues for microbial regulation: Aeromonas as a model

The decision by public health agencies to regulate specific microorganisms that may be found in drinking water can only be made if specific criteria find that a microorganism poses a health risk. These criteria should include: (1) there is a clinical history of an organism causing disease from the ingestion of drinking water; (2) there is epidemiological evidence that drinking water rather than food or other vectors is a major source of disease; (3) there is sufficient evidence that the target organism, if found in water, possesses virulence factors capable of causing disease in humans; (4) there is sufficient evidence that the target organism is not readily removed or inactivated by multi-barrier conventional water treatment process (e.g., coagulation-filtration-disinfection); (5) there is sufficient evidence that the target organism, if surviving conventional treatment, will be viable, virulent, and present in sufficient numbers to cause disease; (6) there are robust analytical methods for the target organism which have acceptable sensitivity, specificity, and reproducibility to measure accurately the presence of the target organism in treated water; and (7) the performance criteria of analytical method(s) for the target organism have been certified by the appropriate public health agency, and there is intra-laboratory field-test performance data to base this certification.