Howard Dean on drinking flushed toilet water, and pee. No, really. He's scaring 8th graders!



The Reliable Source (washingtonpost.com)



Making the point that good scientists must 'never take anything for granted,' Dean observed that water from a flushed toilet actually would be cleaner for drinking than water untreated from the nearby Mississippi River.



'That's disgusting!' one girl shouted. Another student volunteered that his experiment studied dog urine.



'Now that we're on dog pee, we can have an interesting conversation about that,' Dean said. 'I do not recommend drinking urine . . . but if you drink water straight from the river, you have a greater chance of getting an infection than you do if you drink urine.'



Before leaving, Dean pleaded with his pupils not to tell their parents that 'Howard Dean came to my classroom and advised us to drink water from toilets.'