On the news today there was a piece about pharmaceuticals showing up
in trace amounts in our tap water. I found this very disturbing and
wanted to know more about it. I read several news articles, as well as
looked at some research the USGS is doing in this matter. Will you be as disturbed as I am?
The Associated Press just finished investigation
in which they found that 24 of the 50 major metropolitan areas they
checked, including my home of Portland, Oregon, had trace amounts of
pharmaceuticals in their tap water. To see if your city is affected,
check out the map at CNN.
It turns out that I am partially responsible for it being there. I
was taught that if a pill has expired, I should flush it. If they were
minor drugs, such as Tylenol, I'd toss them in the trash. Well, our
waste treatment system is not adequate to remove all drugs. Apparently
this is a really hard thing to do. If you put them in the land fill,
they will leach out of the landfill and into the lakes, rivers and
streams. This causes problem for the wildlife, and eventually gets back
into our drinking water. Even consuming the drugs and then going to the
bathroom will put some into the system. Out bodies do not use up all of
the medicine. Much of it is excreted, once again to end up in our water
system.
We are not the only culprits. Our pets and farm animals take
medicines to. As much as 40% of the medicines the pharmaceutical
companied produce go to veterinary uses. The cattle will take the
drugs, poop in the field, and then this will once again make its way
into our drinking water. This is another great argument for eating
organic meat (or no meat at all).
This problem was first noticed over 20 years ago in Europe. They
have been monitoring the streams and lakes ever since, but little has
been done to curb the issue.
effects
Little is known about the long term effects of drinking trace amounts
of pharmaceuticals. In the short term, there is no effect, but long
term effects have not been studied enough. It could very well be that
the build-up can cause unrecoverable damage to our bodies, but more
research needs to be done. Their is research mentioned, but not cited
in the articles I read. If I find out more about the research on
long-term effects, I'll post a follow up report here.
There has been effects found in wildlife. In volume 8 (1994) of
Chemistry and Ecology the researchers found that male carp and trout
were becoming more feminine due to the raised estrogen levels. They
were found to be producing vitellogenin, which is an egg protein
usually found only in females.
they test the tap water right?
There are no requirements on the water treatment facilities around the
world to test their water. The AP contacted 62 major water treatment
facilities and only 28 did any testing. Of those 28 some only checked
for a couple of pharmaceuticals. The AP went on the test 35 of the
watersheds and found pharmaceuticals in 28 of them.
There are new requirements, set out by the European Medicines Agency
and then addressed in the US by the National Ground Water Association
and the American Chemical Society to test new pharmaceuticals for
eco-toxicity, or how toxic they will be to the environment. These
requirements only address new medicines, so do not test the ecological
impact of current drugs.
it's bottled water for me!
Well... bottled water is often bottled tap water. Even if you get
spring water you may not be safe. Pharmaceuticals have even been found
in Swiss lakes in the alps and in the North Sea. It seems that no water
is safe. You little charcoal filter is not going to help too much if
all that they do at the treatment centers is not helping.
alright, what can we do?
Honestly, we need a lot more research before we know what we can do. To
start with, stop flushing them. Brown County, Wisconsin has started a prescription disposal
twice a year. If you live in a location that has something like this,
dispose of them there. What do they do with them? Well, they started
this in 2006. They still have the drugs they collected then sitting in
the evidence locker at the sherrifs office. They have to keep them
locked up, because many are controlled substances.
We can also learn better ways to treat the water, to get rid of the
chemicals. Reverse osmosis, chlorination, and ozone treatments all can
get rid of some of the chemicals, but each has problems. With reverse
osmosis we can get it down to parts per trillion, but then what do we
do with the waste that will keep it from coming back into the system?
It seems we need a bit more research before we can know what we
really should be doing. I just pray that this research gets going and
gets our water cleaned up very soon.
