Probe: Pharmaceuticals In Drinking Water

Widespread Trace-Level Contamination Found In U.S. Water Supply, AP Investigation Shows

(CBS/AP)  Contamination is not confined to the United States. More than 100 different pharmaceuticals have been detected in lakes, rivers, reservoirs and streams throughout the world. Studies have detected pharmaceuticals in waters throughout Asia, Australia, Canada and Europe - even in Swiss lakes and the North Sea.

In the United States, the problem isn't confined to surface waters. Pharmaceuticals also permeate aquifers deep underground, source of 40 percent of the nation's water supply. Federal scientists who drew water in 24 states from aquifers near contaminant sources such as landfills and animal feed lots found minuscule levels of hormones, antibiotics and other drugs.

Perhaps it's because Americans have been taking drugs - and flushing them unmetabolized or unused - in growing amounts. Over the past five years, the number of U.S. prescriptions rose 12 percent to a record 3.7 billion, while nonprescription drug purchases held steady around 3.3 billion, according to IMS Health and The Nielsen Co.

"People think that if they take a medication, their body absorbs it and it disappears, but of course that's not the case," said EPA scientist Christian Daughton, one of the first to draw attention to the issue of pharmaceuticals in water in the United States.

Some drugs, including widely used cholesterol fighters, tranquilizers and anti-epileptic medications, resist modern drinking water and wastewater treatment processes. Plus, the EPA says there are no sewage treatment systems specifically engineered to remove pharmaceuticals.

One technology, reverse osmosis, removes virtually all pharmaceutical contaminants but is very expensive for large-scale use and leaves several gallons of polluted water for every one that is made drinkable.

Another issue: There's evidence that adding chlorine, a common process in conventional drinking water treatment plants, makes some pharmaceuticals more toxic.

Human waste isn't the only source of contamination. Cattle, for example, are given ear implants that provide a slow release of trenbolone, an anabolic steroid used by some bodybuilders, which causes cattle to bulk up. But not all the trenbolone circulating in a steer is metabolized. A German study showed 10 percent of the steroid passed right through the animals.

Water sampled downstream of a Nebraska feedlot had steroid levels four times as high as the water taken upstream. Male fathead minnows living in that downstream area had low testosterone levels and small heads.

Other veterinary drugs also play a role. Pets are now treated for arthritis, cancer, heart disease, diabetes, allergies, dementia, and even obesity - sometimes with the same drugs as humans. The inflation-adjusted value of veterinary drugs rose by 8 percent, to $5.2 billion, over the past five years, according to an analysis of data from the Animal Health Institute.

Ask the pharmaceutical industry whether the contamination of water supplies is a problem, and officials will tell you no. "Based on what we now know, I would say we find there's little or no risk from pharmaceuticals in the environment to human health," said microbiologist Thomas White, a consultant for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.

But at a conference last summer, Mary Buzby - director of environmental technology for drug maker Merck & Co. Inc. - said: "There's no doubt about it, pharmaceuticals are being detected in the environment and there is genuine concern that these compounds, in the small concentrations that they're at, could be causing impacts to human health or to aquatic organisms."

Recent laboratory research has found that small amounts of medication have affected human embryonic kidney cells, human blood cells and human breast cancer cells. The cancer cells proliferated too quickly; the kidney cells grew too slowly; and the blood cells showed biological activity associated with inflammation.

Also, pharmaceuticals in waterways are damaging wildlife across the nation and around the globe, research shows. Notably, male fish are being feminized, creating egg yolk proteins, a process usually restricted to females. Pharmaceuticals also are affecting sentinel species at the foundation of the pyramid of life - such as earth worms in the wild and zooplankton in the laboratory, studies show.

Some scientists stress that the research is extremely limited, and there are too many unknowns. They say, though, that the documented health problems in wildlife are disconcerting.

"It brings a question to people's minds that if the fish were affected ... might there be a potential problem for humans?" EPA research biologist Vickie Wilson told the AP. "It could be that the fish are just exquisitely sensitive because of their physiology or something. We haven't gotten far enough along."

With limited research funds, said Shane Snyder, research and development project manager at the Southern Nevada Water Authority, a greater emphasis should be put on studying the effects of drugs in water.

"I think it's a shame that so much money is going into monitoring to figure out if these things are out there, and so little is being spent on human health," said Snyder. "They need to just accept that these things are everywhere - every chemical and pharmaceutical could be there. It's time for the EPA to step up to the plate and make a statement about the need to study effects, both human and environmental."

To the degree that the EPA is focused on the issue, it appears to be looking at detection. Grumbles acknowledged that just late last year the agency developed three new methods to "detect and quantify pharmaceuticals" in wastewater. "We realize that we have a limited amount of data on the concentrations," he said. "We're going to be able to learn a lot more."

While Grumbles said the EPA had analyzed 287 pharmaceuticals for possible inclusion on a draft list of candidates for regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act, he said only one, nitroglycerin, was on the list. Nitroglycerin can be used as a drug for heart problems, but the key reason it's being considered is its widespread use in making explosives.

So much is unknown. Many independent scientists are skeptical that trace concentrations will ultimately prove to be harmful to humans. Confidence about human safety is based largely on studies that poison lab animals with much higher amounts.

There's growing concern in the scientific community, meanwhile, that certain drugs - or combinations of drugs - may harm humans over decades because water, unlike most specific foods, is consumed in sizable amounts every day.

Our bodies may shrug off a relatively big one-time dose, yet suffer from a smaller amount delivered continuously over a half century, perhaps subtly stirring allergies or nerve damage. Pregnant women, the elderly and the very ill might be more sensitive.

Many concerns about chronic low-level exposure focus on certain drug classes: chemotherapy that can act as a powerful poison; hormones that can hamper reproduction or development; medicines for depression and epilepsy that can damage the brain or change behavior; antibiotics that can allow human germs to mutate into more dangerous forms; pain relievers and blood-pressure diuretics.

For several decades, federal environmental officials and nonprofit watchdog environmental groups have focused on regulated contaminants - pesticides, lead, PCBs - which are present in higher concentrations and clearly pose a health risk.

However, some experts say medications may pose a unique danger because, unlike most pollutants, they were crafted to act on the human body.

"These are chemicals that are designed to have very specific effects at very low concentrations. That's what pharmaceuticals do. So when they get out to the environment, it should not be a shock to people that they have effects," says zoologist John Sumpter at Brunel University in London, who has studied trace hormones, heart medicine and other drugs.

And while drugs are tested to be safe for humans, the timeframe is usually over a matter of months, not a lifetime. Pharmaceuticals also can produce side effects and interact with other drugs at normal medical doses. That's why - aside from therapeutic doses of fluoride injected into potable water supplies - pharmaceuticals are prescribed to people who need them, not delivered to everyone in their drinking water.

Adds Dr. David Carpenter: "We know we are being exposed to other people's drugs through our drinking water, and that can't be good."

[honestabe8]

drug free america, my increasingly fat arse

[honestabe8]

jesuslovesU: what does this have to do with drinking water? or, are you just taking any opportunity to push your delusion on others?

[gaye5]

No sorry, I gather that boiling water and using the steam from that also takes most thing out...

[gaye5]

Iceman_1960 worte ....Believe me, you don"t want to be out in the woods and run into a Moose on Viagra..."

- Jay Leno
..............................
Well, that has just made my morning, thanks for the laugh.. so good to see something funny instead of people using nasty remarks to those who dont think the same as others..

UhYeah1, you are so right, and what happens to our animals/fish will cause massive problems to the earth..

And I gather from my own research that reverse osmosis is the only one which takes every thing out, hope others can put some light on that..

[gaye5]

Iceman_1960, if the Brita Water Filtering system is the same as the Breta one in australia which is just a table one then it is vertually useless, I gather that it is only a reverse osmosis one that gets everything out, it is expensive but well worth it, look it up on the net.. Some warn that it also takes out minerals so is not good for you, but the amount of minerals that we get from our water is minimal, most of our minerals come from our food..hope this helps..

[gaye5]

samrensho, thanks for the laugh but so true...

Fluoride alone has been found to not only lower the IQ, but make you docile, along with many other things. Makes it easier for governments and the UN to do their dirty work..

Imagine all the interaction of all these chemicals on the people, not with standing the developing fetus. We have never seen so many sick children/dying in our lives.
My Husband has been teaching for 40 years and even 20 years ago very really did children have to take days off school here in Australia.. hmmmm but now that kids are such rotters, teachers are glad that kids take days off..trouble is the bad ones are always sent to school when they are sick as the parents cant stand them at home, ehehhehe.

[gaye5]

brianbwb, so true, and it is not just American''s who are being silenced, it seems to be the west who are being silenced and they use security, religious vilification, discrimination, or the rights of people as an excuse to shut the population up and professionals, Dr''s and Professors against what they are pushing are silenced, ridiculed or sacked, WHY..
I suppose it is one way of cutting back on the population eh.. good one Brian...

[gaye5]

I have a reverse osmosis filter, to filter out fluoride and such posions. I just wonder what effect all this above and obviously many other drugs do to our devoloping children/fetus''s and babies.
They have shown that the contraceptive pill is so heavilly in the water now that even fish are having problems with mutiplying.. and their sexuality..
I feel that we are in for some massive numbers of deformaties or early deaths..and of course where there is money to be made, nothing will be done...

[MrEntuza]

I found it incredibly IRONIC that a story about prescription drugs are showing up in our water supplies be sandwiched between 2 drug commercials during 3/10''s broadcast. We reap what we sow.

[erasmus6]

"seconce" should read "second"

[erasmus6]

I don''t know if anybody knows Dr. Andrew Weil but he recommends a dual-cylinder water filter that fits under the sink. It has a solid carbon block in the first cylinder and a copper-zinc alloy called KDF in the seconce cylinder. He says it removes much more contaminates than the ones with activated, granular carbon.

I have a single carbon filter one and it removes 99% of contaminates.

He also says that if you are going to buy bottled water, to buy only ones in GLASS bottles or CLEAR plastic bottles and of course only if they supply an analysis and a certification of it''s purity.

[haywire62]

Seems intresting to me that such information was reported to the public. I have been to these water treatment plants. I have been told by the treatment plant that water flushed down the toilet or down the drain to the treatment plant never is introduced back into the drinking supply for the city. The water has been filters for landscaping use only. So the excuse for how these drugs get into the water supply does not float.

[Keypinitreel1]

Shoot... I need to se what Medicine is in the water around here... might be something I need.

Posted by keypinitreel at 09:09 AM : Mar 11, 2008
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That statement right there is a Diss waiting to happen.. I usually dont walk into them like that.

[Keypinitreel1]

Shoot... I need to se what Medicine is in the water around here... might be something I need.

[grammawhamma]

"Ask your doctor if this water might be right for you."

[strewthmate]

minute quantities of chemicals can cause big problems, check out Dr. Tyrone Hayes'' lecture, From Silent Spring to Silent Night, and learn.

/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4lijvIjpRw

[brianbwb-2009]

Posted by andyli1004

We will report you until you are banned.

[uhyeah1]

I would really like to know what kinds of water filtration techniques, other than reverse osmosis, could be used to remove the medications from the water. Anyone who thinks that it is safe to have pharmaceuticals in our drinking water needs to wake up! Even if it was only dangerous to animals, it is going to change the dynamics in the ecosystem and that is eventually going to have an effect on humans. Besides, why are we so selfish that we don''t care about what happens to other forms of life? Also, I think it is more of a post-9/11 security concern to find that we have weird chemicals floating around in our water. What''s to stop terrorists from putting something worse in the water? This is a real security concern that shouldn''t be covered up to us, the American people! Is this still our country?

[iceman_1960]

"We recognize it is a growing concern and we''re taking it very seriously," said Benjamin H. Grumbles, assistant administrator for water at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency."
----------------------------

Guys like Grumbles are always complaining about something.

[iceman_1960]

"Another problem is wild animals.

They"re drinking these medications in the water. That could be a problem.

Believe me, you don"t want to be out in the woods and run into a Moose on Viagra..."

- Jay Leno