AP: 41 Million Americans Drink Water Contaminated With Antibiotics, Anti-Convulsants, Mood Stabilizers, And Sex Hormones
A soup of pharmaceutical waste spews from the faucets supplying drinking water to 41 million Americans, according to a disturbing study from the Associated Press. At least 24 major cities are affected, including New York, Washington, Boston Chicago, and Los Angeles.
Here are some of the key test results obtained by the AP:What Exactly Is In My Drinking Water?
- Officials in Philadelphia said testing there discovered 56 pharmaceuticals or byproducts in treated drinking water, including medicines for pain, infection, high cholesterol, asthma, epilepsy, mental illness and heart problems. Sixty-three pharmaceuticals or byproducts were found in the city's watersheds.
- Anti-epileptic and anti-anxiety medications were detected in a portion of the treated drinking water for 18.5 million people in Southern California.
- Researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey analyzed a Passaic Valley Water Commission drinking water treatment plant, which serves 850,000 people in Northern New Jersey, and found a metabolized angina medicine and the mood-stabilizing carbamazepine in drinking water.
- A sex hormone was detected in San Francisco's drinking water.
- The drinking water for Washington, D.C., and surrounding areas tested positive for six pharmaceuticals.
- Three medications, including an antibiotic, were found in drinking water supplied to Tucson, Ariz.
The situation is undoubtedly worse than suggested by the positive test results in the major population centers documented by the AP.
Drugs. Lots of drugs. Trace amounts of the prescriptions we take and the steroids we inject into cattle are winding their way into our water supply. When we (or our eventual steak dinner) can't fully metabolize a pharmaceutical, it passes straight through us, past treatment plans, and back into the ground until we (or our cow friend) drink it up. Detected drugs include: "antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones."
Ok, Drinking Water Is Bad. I Can Switch To Bottled Water, Right?
No. Bottled water is drinking water suspended in a wasteful plastic shell. Like municipalities, water bottlers don't test for pharmaceuticals. Home filtration systems are equally useless against drugs.
Um, Ok. There Is No Escape. Am I Safe?
Eh, maybe. Scientists aren't exactly sure, but the research isn't encouraging. Pharmaceuticals, unlike general pollutants, are specifically designed to futz with the human body. "...recent studies—which have gone virtually unnoticed by the general public—have found alarming effects on human cells and wildlife." 'Alarming effects' means that cancers grow faster, kidney cells stop regenerating, and heart cells become cranky and inflamed.
This Sucks. What Is The Government Doing?
Ah yes, the government. Maybe they can offer an encouraging and meaningful response? Let's turn for reassurance to Benjamin Grumbles, the EPA's assistant administrator for water:
"We recognize it is a growing concern and we're taking it very seriously."@#$%!
AP Probe Finds Drugs in Drinking Water [ABC]
(Photo: Getty)
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Comments:
My legs and back hurt, maybe I should go fill a couple glass's up with some tap water...could help!
This is terrible and hopefully there is someway to fix this. Antibiotics arent meant to be taken constantly and if they are in the water supply it would lead to them being useless. They tend to destroy the immune system as well.
Can any of this get filtered out through Brita or Pur filters?
If they could get my birth control pills in the water, I'd save a fortune in pharmaceutical copays.....
No need to buy your xanax and oxy off the street, just boil your tap water down and enjoy concentrated doses without hydroencephalitis (sp?)
Mind control in the water. Genious.
i could be wrong - i haven't been to a treatment plant since i was a little kid - but i don't think distillation is used in the treatment process. that may be difficult/expensive on a large scale, but i think it resolves this problem.
I'd make my own water but the cost of hydrogen is just outrageous!
I think we finally figured out what is wrong with San Fransico, just look at what they had in their water.
oh, well at least they recognize that it's a "growing concern".
thanks EPA!
Our city water straight out of the tap fails the health department cleanliness tests for public pool water.
We have a water distiller, a big water dispenser in the fridge and reusable water bottles. That is the only water we drink.
Supposedly the main problem in our water is farm chemical runoff and manure. So they dump tons of chlorine in it.
We bought the distiller off of Amazon for about $100. Thinking about buying a larger one.
I heard this is the crux of Hillary's plan to provide afforable prescription drugs to all Americans.
And we were worried about terrorists polluting our water with some chemical agent...
This is a case of modern testing being so incredibly sensitive that they are picking up such small amounts (< 1ppm) as to be physiologically irrelevant. Did you know there's also a measurable amount of cocaine on most US currency? Measurable, of course, because chemists are very clever, not because your money is getting you high.
Another case of sensationalist journalism combined with the inability of reasonable people to apply common sense.
Boil water first, then filter it and boil again, cool it and drink it. I think its the only way. Now I am going to buy filters. Also get a shower filter for the body. Makes more sense.
Of course the article fails to mention specifics about what drugs were found and in what percentages, which tells me it's another piece of alarmist nonsense that probably wouldn't look relatively benign if the author actually published the specifics...if he even knows.
@nonzenze: Exactly. And yet, nobody seems to be overly concerned about cocaine on the currency because there's just not enough there to have any effect on the human body whatsoever.
The AP gets an F-. Come back when you have an article with documented facts.
PS: And if you're worried about incredibly minute traces of substances in the water, don't even ask about what's in the air or how much electromagnetic radiation you're absorbing by standing next to that laser printer.
@UpsetPanda:
I doubt it, I'm sure water treatment plants filter the water before they send it out. At least I hope so.
OMG, it's the .0000000000001 ppm of diazepam in my water making me woozy!
Diabolical!
i don't drink the water out of the tap, but i do use the ice cubes from the ice cube maker. our fridge uses a PureSource2 water filter. wonder if that filters any of the drugs out?
And there is fecal matter on the vegetables I buy! It all balances out...
www.iamtryingtobelieve.com is the first thing that springs to mind. :/.
@bohemian: Do you realize that fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous Communist plot we have ever had to face?
/obligitory-kubrik-quote
I'm gonna go get high on water, brb.
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
I still refuse to buy bottled water.
Maybe this is why tap water usually wins in blind taste tests.
So, uhhh, Dr. Strangelove was right? They are putting mind altering chemicals in our drinking water.
@parad0x360: "Antibiotics arent meant to be taken constantly and if they are in the water supply it would lead to them being useless."
Worse than that, they lead to antibiotic-tolerant super-bacteria.
man chlorine kills all that stuff, and plus the antibiotics help kill the e-coli in the water
... Double-distillation here I come! I'm glad I stopped drinking tap water when it started to taste like someone decided to mine every heavy metal known to man, mix it all up, and make some metallic kool-aid.
"A sex hormone was detected in San Francisco's drinking water."
Okay, I can't help it -- that made me snicker a bit. :P
Now if we could only combine all those marvelous chemicals into a new "vitamin water." We could have 41 million sexed up, mellowed out, non-convulsing, virus free Americans. If this happened in Russia, they would throw a parade.
Note to self: stop making my daughter's bottles with tap water.
@thesuperpet: The bottle itself is more of a threat than the tap water. (And it's not much of a threat.)
This was on NPR the other day. They said the other part of the problem is that people dispose of unused pills improperly by flushing them down the toilet. Usually these can be taken to a pharmacy to be disposed of properly.
A lot of things bother me, but I'm choosing not to let this one bother me. It's like not thinking about what goes on in the kitchen at Denny's.
Once you go down that road, you turn into Ted Kaczynski living in a shack in Idaho.
LOVELY!
Is there anyone in our government -- like, ANYONE AT ALL -- that attempts to figure these things out and solve them BEFORE they become a "growing concern" that they can "take very seriously"?!
@Techno Viking: You assume that the boiling actually breaks down the chemicals in the water, which it may or may not (most likely not).
If the chemicals are stable enough to survive your digestive tract, waste water treatment, nature, water filtration etc.... I doubt boiling it will save you.
Is there ANYTHING we don't have to be scared of anymore? Jeez.
I liked this quote from the article:
"Arlington, Texas, acknowledged that traces of a pharmaceutical were detected in its drinking water but cited post-9/11 security concerns in refusing to identify the drug."
Uh....what does 9/11 have to do with pharmaceuticals in the water today? Any 9/11 tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorists want to explain?
What I read:
"ALERT! ALERT! DRUGS IN TAP WATER! RUN AROUND WITH HANDS IN AIR!"
What I didn't read: How this matters. No talk whatsoever of any impact on human health. Even the EPA - who we might think to look to for advice on this - says
"It brings a question to people's minds that if the fish were affected ... might there be a potential problem for humans?"
The EPA official who asked that question didn't bother to answer it, only saying that maybe fish are "exquisitely sensitive". Huh?
I don't see anything here to get worked up about.
MOOD STABILIZERS IN MY DRINKING WATER MAKE ME SO ANGRY.
@smarty: "Any 9/11 tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorists want to explain?"
Conspiracy theorists know that tinfoil has been contaminated too so they don't wear tinfoil hats anymore. Now they duct tape to their heads organically grown rocks rich in metallic ore.
The Government has been putting a mind numbing mood stabilizer in your drinking water for many many years now. And the funny thing is that most people actually want it in their water, because they think it is good for their teeth. It is called fluoride.
Consumerist has come full circle to scare mongering now. What's next, live feeds from Art Bell?
Well, I'd take it very seriously, but I just had a big glass of water so I feel pretty mellow about the whole thing . ..