In one of the largest studies of its kind to date, the Environmental Protection Agency tested municipal water for over 50 kinds of pharmaceutical substances including prescription and over-the-counter drugs. The results showed that that over half the public water had higher concentrations of drugs than experts had previously anticipated with high blood pressure medication at the top of the readings. And surprise, surprise, there are no federal regulations limiting the amounts of these substances that companies can release in our water.
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If you’re anything like me, you probably don’t have a medicine cabinet full of prescription drugs. But the average American trusts that when they take their medication as prescribed, they are not likely to cause harm to themselves or others.
Wherever you may fall on the conventional to alternative spectrum, no one wants to have traces of pharmaceutic hormones, anti-depressants, or other drugs swirling around in their water glass.
How do drugs end up in our water?
It’s simple when you think about it. The main reason drugs get into the water supply is through the toilet.
Prescription drugs are excreted through urine because the human body doesn’t completely absorb the chemicals. Plus, many health care facilities have been flushing expired drugs for decades without considering the long-term environmental effects it may have on water supplies. Add to this that fact that left-over and expired drugs get tossed by consumers in the toilet or trash, and it’s easy to see how drugs are making their way into the groundwater and water supply.
Even more disturbing in my opinion – factory farming is largely to blame with “two trillion pounds of animal waste generated by large-scale poultry and livestock operations in this country, laced with hormones and antibiotics fed to animals to make them grow faster and to keep them from getting sick. Inevitably, some of those hormones and antibiotics leach into groundwater and get into waterways.” (
source) One more reason to get to know your farmer.
Are the drugs in drinking water enough to harm us?
The federal government will not bother to investigate unless there is reason to believe that the concentration of any substance can reach a substantial level. Since there no ‘evidence’ to prove the negative effects, health officials therefore conclude that ingesting low levels of chemical in drinking water pose no serious health risks for humans.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t find this particularly reassuring.
Freaky things are happening to fish and frogs where concentrated amounts of pharmaceutical compounds are being found in their water. In areas where estrogen is polluting their habitat, scientists have found larger populations of only female fish, the appearance of intersex fish that are both male and female, and male fish actually developing eggs.
(source) Low levels of common anti-depressants are causing development problems in fish and metamorphosis delays in frogs. (
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When a pharmaceutical company applies for new drug approval, it has to submit an estimate of how much that drug will end up in the environment. They use a model based on how many people they estimate will take the drug, how it will pass through the body, and how it degrades in water. If the estimate is over 1 part per billion (ppb) the FDA can ask for a more thorough evaluation of how that drug will affect aquatic life.
On July 7, 2010, two environmental groups—the National Resources Defense Council and the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center—filed a citizen’s petition asking the FDA to ask for a more thorough evaluation for all new drug applications, no matter what the estimate.
The FDA denied the petition… though eight of the drugs in the EPA study came in at maximum levels above that 1 ppb “brightline,” FDA officials said it would be a challenge to go back and ask the pharmaceutical companies to re-evaluate.(
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Hey, FDA, thanks so much for having our backs.
If the planet’s aquatic life is being negatively impacted, is it really safe to assume that there will be no long term effects of drugs in drinking water on human health? Personally, I’d rather be safe than sorry.
Are you worried about drugs and other chemicals in your drinking water?
What are you doing to make sure your water is safe?
For starters the municple water users of Minnetrista should consider voting for the Reverse Osmosis System this May.
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