My teen daughter asked me the question "Is it safe to drink water from a hose?" from a section of Seventeen Magazine called "don't get sick this summer". Do you know the answer, and why?

No - it isn't safe to drink from a hose.

From Seventeen, "Many hoses contain lead, a toxic metal that seeps into water when the sun heats the hose. This water can upset your stomach or weaken your muscles".

I know lots about lead and I didn't realize there is lead in plastic hoses... what are corporations thinking and doing... it's like they want to reduce US children's and adults' IQs and destroy their health on purpose... ever consider that one?

Besides killing the brains of babies and adults, and upsetting stomachs, and weakening your muscles, lead harms people in many other serious ways still being studied and analyzed, including...

• "Children and adults who experience excessively high body burden lead levels may also experience permanent damage to their nervous systems up to and including paralysis and death." - September 24, 2001 in a letter to the Director of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, Steve Mahfood.
• "Low levels of lead may contribute to impairments in cognitive function in senior citizens” - The Mid-Atlantic Center for Children's Health and  the Environment, George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Sciences
• "Overexposure to lead may also result in damage to the kidneys, anemia, high blood pressure, impotence, and infertility and reduced sex drive in both sexes." March 2001.
• "Elevated blood lead levels (BLLs) in adults can damage various systems in the body, especially the nervous system, blood, reproductive system, kidneys, cardiovascular system, and gastrointestinal system. Some of the health effects caused by high blood lead levels are muscle and joint pain, headaches, fatigue, slower reflexes, kidney damage, higher blood pressure, and reproductive problems."