Give as whole new meaning to "its in the water"...are you getting medicated just by drinking the water in some cities...flushing unused mediations down the toilet...one cause...the EPA says there are no sewage treatment systems specifically engineered to remove pharmaceuticals...and chlorine can make some pharmaceuticals more toxic...and it's not just people....think about the animals who receive steroids...they have the same bodily functions and there's another area of concern...BD
To be sure, the concentrations of these pharmaceuticals are tiny, measured in quantities of parts per billion or trillion, far below the levels of a medical dose. Also, utilities insist their water is safe.
But the presence of so many prescription drugs — and over-the-counter medicines like acetaminophen and ibuprofen — in so much of our drinking water is heightening worries among scientists of long-term consequences to human health.
In the course of a five-month inquiry, the AP discovered that drugs have been detected in the drinking water supplies of 24 major metropolitan areas — from Southern California to Northern New Jersey, from Detroit to Louisville, Ky.
How do the drugs get into the water?
People take pills. Their bodies absorb some of the medication, but the rest of it passes through and is flushed down the toilet. The wastewater is treated before it is discharged into reservoirs, rivers or lakes. Then, some of the water is cleansed again at drinking water treatment plants and piped to consumers. But most treatments do not remove all drug residue. A sex hormone was detected in San Francisco's drinking water. Three medications, including an antibiotic, were found in drinking water supplied to Tucson, Ariz."We know we are being exposed to other people's drugs through our drinking water, and that can't be good," says Dr. David Carpenter, who directs the Institute for Health and the Environment of the State University of New York at Albany.
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