As I understand it once you have produced the treatment you have to take it on faith that it is indeed what the process is supposed to be producing and the god stuff that is going to convert biologically hazardous water into safe water. If the process fails for some unknown reason how would you know before you drink the water?
The MIOX pen comes with test strips for testing water post treatment. The pen itself will alert you if something goes wrong with the MIOX process (not enough salt, not enough water, etc)
I could see someone religiously following procedures, treating a groups water and the entire group ending doubled up with giardia or dysentery.
This could be true of ANY water treatment if the wrong type is used or the type which is used is used incorrectly.
If I use a chlorine based chemical treatment I can taste and smell the chemical in the water. If I use iodine based chemicals I can see and taste the iodine. It isn't a great taste but I pretty much know that if I follow a standard dosage rate and a temperature-treatment time table I'm pretty much covered.
Likewise boiling is a treatment that I can observe some visibly obvious clues, the water boiling, and a time-altitude table to get reliable results.
As I understand, reading about it and seeing it done a few times I don't see any similar clues to tell me the treatment was prepared properly and is likely to be as protective as I like. You do your thing, drink and then see if you get sick.
The Mixed Oxidant solution does make the water taste a bit funky...the longer you let it sit, the less funky it tastes. MSR recommends putting drink mix in treated water to mask the flavor if it's an issue. The solution itself smells funky too...sorta like a mix between Chlorine and Ozone.
But even even if that could be overcome, perhaps I got it wrong, I still have trouble relying on a battery powered electronic device to keep me upright and functioning.
There is no entirely failsafe water treatment. I currently use some combination of gross filtration, i
I agree 100%. I don't trust it to always be there. I carry extra salt, extra batteries AND a straw filter AND treatment tablets.
I do like the fact that it can use any salt from rock salt to table salt...it will even run on Half Salt (tm). The Steripen beats it there however.