Prescription Drugs... In Our Drinking Water?

This blog was created to inform the general public, nursing community, and other water consumers of alarming facts concerning the purity and safety of our drinking water, and to encourage safer disposal of unused drugs. Hundreds of active pharmaceutical drug residues contaminate our water by many different means, placing human health, wildlife, and our environment at risk. Think bottled water is a safe bet? Think again.
Twenty years ago, the EPA found that sludge from a US sewage treatment plant contained aspirin, caffeine, nicotine, and clofibric acid, but the findings were not deemed significant! European scientists have been at the forefront of research after traces of powerful drugs were found to be contaminating sewage, treated water, and rivers throughout Germany. The astonishing number of pharmaceutical pollutants found include antilipidemics, antibiotics, antiepileptics, hormones, analgesics, chemotherapy drugs, psychiatric drugs, and many others!
Our federal government has set no standards or safety limits for drugs in water, and results of independent investigations have remained largely unpublicized. Many scientists say that the synergistic dangers may be much greater than we realize and the evidence is compelling.
What can be done to clean up our water supply and reverse this dangerous problem?

· Seehusen, Dean A., Edwards, J. Patient Practices and Beliefs Concerning Disposal of Medications. (2006). <http://www.jabfm.org/cgi/content/full/19/6/542>

· Water Resources Research Center, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, University of Arizona.Pharmaceuticals In Our Water Supplies, July 2000 http://ag.arizona.edu/AZWATER/awr/july00/feature1.htm


Have you ever heard of pharmaceuticals being found in our water?

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Prescription drugs found in tap water 2009

What exactly is going on?

Americans have been told for decades to flush unused prescription drugs down the toilet without giving a second thought to it. Well, no more...
The amount and variety of drugs used by Americans has skyrocketed. Only recently have the effects on health and the environment even begun to be realized through research, surveys, and independent analysis. Federal law only requires that water be tested for 1 drug: Nitroglycerine, and efforts to curb the pollution have yet to receive funding.

What Consumers Can Do
·        Dispose of unused or unwanted medications at take-back sites or events. Click here to find a medicine take-back location
·        Do NOT dispose of any medication down the toilet or in the trash
·        Purchase drugs in small amounts, limiting expired medications
·        Ask for medications with low environmental impact
·        Encourage your provider to take-back unwanted drugs
·        Share the message of safe disposal with family and friends
·        Commit to wellness strategies to reduce your reliance on medications
·        Practice healthy product stewardship
An excellent brochure on safe disposal of drugs and pollution prevention <http://www.teleosis.org/pdf/GreenPharmacyBrochure.pdf>

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CNN: Most Bottled Water is Tap

So you thought that bottled water or a home filtration system would ensure that your family gets only the purest?
Consumers of Aquafina, Dasani, and other brands, please take note.
These companies are not required and do not routinely test for the presence of pharmaceuticals in their product! The reality is that many bottlers of "naturally pure" water simply repackage tap water from public sources while marketing the "clear mountain stream" gimmick. Meanwhile, bottled water has become a multibillion dollar per year industry and sales are second only to carbonated beverages.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saSgpX186MM


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CNN - Drugs on Tap Water


In the US, we are fortunate to have some of the best drinking water in the world.  However, a five month probe by the Associated Press found trace amounts of a number of drugs in the water supplies of 24 major metropolitan areas encompassing approximately 41 million Americans.  How does your water rate where you live?






See the results of the AP investigation at the bottom of the page.
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Drugs in our Water Turn Male FIsh to Female

Throughout America and across the world, pharmaceuticals in the water supply are wreaking havoc on wildlife. While the impact on humans is still uncertain, research shows that the presence of endocrine disrupters are causing hormonal chaos in several species of fish, as well as sentinel species that are at the foundation of the chain of life. Worldwide, the development of female egg proteins in male fish of several different species has been discovered, and the anomaly is becoming more and more common.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKhgg6TuFrc


http://www.epa.gov/waterscience/ppcp/studies/fish-expand.html






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Schools Water Is Filled With Toxins In All 50 States!

An Associated Press independent investigation found something unsettling in schools all throughout the US.   In addition to the emerging problem of  pharmaceutical pollutants, water tainted by lead, heavy metals, and various other toxins has been found at schools in all 50 states.  The same contaminants are in homes, businesses, and offices, but the children are especially vulnerable to these hazards from environmental toxins.
Thus we have another glaring example of a much larger problem in rural and urban areas throughout America that has been unmonitored and unregulated despite failing to meet the minimum standards set by the Safe Drinking Water Act. 
While this may be the "tip of the iceberg" so to speak, the substances which pollute our drinking water are numerous and potentially toxic.


Burke, Garrance. AP Impact: School Drinking Water Contains Toxins., September 25, 2009. http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=8668820

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World's Highest Drug Levels Entering India Stream - ABC News



   This is a very interesting and disturbing article that brings to mind the badly polluted conditions that people must live in  elsewhere in the world.  India is one of the world's largest exporters of pharmaceutical drugs, and the US is their biggest customer.

  Wastewater downstream from a plant where 90 Indian drug factories dump their residues contained 150 times the highest levels found in the US!

   For the first time, the India studies have proven that drug manufacturers, and not just consumers, are responsible for widespread contamination of water.  Water from the Indian treatment plant resulted in tadpoles 40% smaller than those growing in clean water.  When certain drugs are mixed with bacteria, like those present in raw sewage, resistant strains of bacteria develop and proliferate.  Researchers have found in the laboratory that human cells grow abnormally when exposed to certain pharmaceuticals.  The precarious list of implications emerging from the latest research just keeps growing, and it doesn't take a scientist to imagine the potential disasters in store if this pollution continues unabated.









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Does the presence of multiple pharmaceuticals in the water supply and their effect on health concern you?