quote: A vast array of pharmaceuticals -- including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones -- have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows.
....
The federal government doesn't require any testing and hasn't set safety limits for drugs in water.
....
Rural consumers who draw water from their own wells aren't in the clear either, experts say.
Even users of bottled water and home filtration systems don't necessarily avoid exposure. Bottlers, some of which simply repackage tap water, do not typically treat or test for pharmaceuticals, according to the industry's main trade group. The same goes for the makers of home filtration systems.
Now, on the one hand, the recent string of bad news for average consumers has gotten a half hearted response out of Congress. So what, given the fact that this will also come up against Bush's lackluster EPA, can we really expect anyone to do about it? One would think now that we know these trace amounts of drugs are getting into water supply that the clean water act (or whatever it's officially called) would pertain to this, but since when it was passed this wasn't even a concern, I think it needs updating.
But who's willing to put more than five bucks on a bet that Congress will launch an investigation into the dangers of trace drugs in the water supply and for that matter in nature on wildlife? And who's willing to bet further that if any danger is found, they'll order a drastic overhaul of the waste and/or water treatment and sanitation systems of the country, and regulate bottled water manufacturers to make sure the problem is solved?
posted
Do you know I had never even THOUGHT or HEARD of people doing that until I saw all these PSA-type posters and pamphlets in the pharmacy one day? My parents always took them to the recycle center on toxic waste disposal day, along with the batteries, so I thought that's what "everyone" did... Boy, I asked the pharm tech about it and she started ranting about the stupidity of some people, I had never even known people would think of pouring pills down a drain or flushing them down the toilet! We don't even throw them in the trash!
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:This is why you DON'T FLUSH YOUR DRUGS DOWN THE TOILET, people.
This is only part of the problem, you realize. Since not all drugs are completely absorbed, a lot of chemicals are passed in stool or urine.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
I had thought of that, actually... And not all the contamination comes from that source, either, I'm sure. But as I said, the mind boggles at the thought of doing that. Mine does, anyway.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: This is only part of the problem, you realize. Since not all drugs are completely absorbed, a lot of chemicals are passed in stool or urine.
Yep. There are drug assays for stool and urine. I remember that when I took penicillin as a child (can't anymore, allergic), my urine smelled like the pink amoxicillin liquid.
(It's a strong but not savoured memory!)
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote: So what, given the fact that this will also come up against Bush's lackluster EPA, can we really expect anyone to do about it?
Hey now, that's not fair. The EPA will work very hard to ensure that all those big drug companies will be able to collect payment for all the free drugs you've been drinking in your tap water. You can't steal their drugs just because they're in the water!
posted
So do we think that running the water through a Brita filter helps?
I already don't drink enough water. If I think about what is actually still in it, I will dry up like a raisin.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by ketchupqueen: This is why you DON'T FLUSH YOUR DRUGS DOWN THE TOILET, people.
Immediately after my MIL's death (3 years ago), a representative from the Hospice came to the house and marked off all the remaining narcotics on a legal list and then flushed them down the toilet. This included large amounts of methadone and morphene. We were told this was what the law required.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:So do we think that running the water through a Brita filter helps?
I believe Brita filters use a carcoal adsorption system which will reduce the level of most organic compounds in the water but not zero. It will be less effective at removing things that are very hydrophillic.
I'd be very interested to know what levels of these drugs are being detected in drinking water. The simple fact that the drugs are present doesn't really mean anything. If the levels are low enough it isn't a problem.
I suspect that the levels are extremely low and probably don't represent a real safety concern. Consider for example that 3 - 4% of Americans are allergic to penicyllin and 1.23 in 10,000 experience analphylaxis when given penicyllin. If the levels of antibiotics in the drinking water were high enough to be a problem for people with allergies, we would expect to see around 5000 who had severe allergic reactions requiring emergency care from drinking water. To the best of my knowledge -- this isn't happening. And I should not that allergic reactions are among the most sensitive reactions in the human body. If these levels aren't high enough to trigger anaphylaxis in highly allergic individuals, its unlikely that they will cause other problems.
I do think the problem warrants further study and I would support close monitoring and regulation of the drug levels in drinking water.
I just wanted to emphasize that the simple fact that these compounds can be measured in drinking water does not mean that there is a danger or that we would expect to observe any effect as a result of drinking these compounds in our water.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
My concern (not knowing if it is valid or not) wouldn't be that people would have specific reactions but that other bacteria could build up immunity to, for example, antibiotics. This might hamper the effectiveness of drugs later.
Does that make any sense?
Plus it is icky to think about.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: My concern (not knowing if it is valid or not) wouldn't be that people would have specific reactions but that other bacteria could build up immunity to, for example, antibiotics. This might hamper the effectiveness of drugs later.
Does that make any sense?
Plus it is icky to think about.
Just like the allergic reaction, if the levels are low enough they wouldn't cause bacteria to develop immunity either. Exposing bacteria to antibiotics doesn't exactly cause them to become immune in the first place, it selects for bacteria that randomly become immune. If the levels are too low to kill or inhibit any bacteria then there is no selective pressure and you would not anticipate creation of an immune strain.
If want to create super bacteria that are immune to high levels of antibiotic, you start growing bacteria in low levels of antibiotic (say levels that would kill 25 - 50% of the bacteria) and then gradually increase the levels until you get to very high levels. That certainly isn't happening in the drinking water.
Unfortunately, I don't think anyone knows what low enough means in this context which is why I support further study of the problem.
As for the icky part, lots of things are icky to think about but that doesn't mean that they are bad for you. Everytime you breath you inhale tens of thousands of the same molecules that Adolf Hitler actually had in his lungs. Everytime you drink water, you drink millions of water molecules that were once in somes urine for feces. All very icky to think about but not a problem and not something its possible to change.
People should recognize that it isn't possible to eliminate every molecule of every drug from the drinking water. Its not possible with current technology and the laws of thermodynamics say it won't ever be possible in a finite length of time for a finite expenditure of energy. We can try to determine what levels are unsafe and monitor to make sure we don't exceed those levels. We can't make the levels zero.
As chemical analysis methods get better and better we will be able to detect these things at lower and lower levels -- that doesn't not make it a problem.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
This is all just more panic mongering. Don't worry about it. It gets viewers and sells papers.
Rabbit is right. We drink and inhale so many nasty things all the time. Not to mention all the stuff that occurs naturally in our food. Worried about Estrogen in the drinking water? You should be more concerned about your Soy Latte.
This is just another scam.
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
So, let me make sure I get this story straight... if I get sick, all I have to do now is drink lots of tap water?
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Does anyone know when the actual research was done? We discussed this in journal club and I remember who brought it in and she graduated like 6 months ago. One thing we talked about with it though was problems in the sex life of fish. The theory was that some abnormal sexual behavior in some fish in contaminated rivers could be linked to the increased levels of estrogen. While the doses are low for people, they are high enough to affect the fish.
Posts: 1001 | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
Not to put too fine a point on it, but... If there's high levels of drugs in the drinking water supply, then what exactly should we do about that?
An associate was doing some related research and basically attested that, well, wastewater treatment doesn't remove these compounds (in most cases it just amounts to adding chlorine to the water to kill bacteria); the natural purification cycle doesn't remove nearly as much of these compounds as previously believed, and as noted, commercial purification at the tap end doesn't do much about it either.
If the problem is already here, then, yes, we can stop people from dumping drugs down the toilet- but what else exactly is the EPA or anyone else going to do about the problem?
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Find a solution? If we determine that it IS a problem, and I think further studies should be done to see if over the course of living with that water for 50+ years some problems could occur, then they have to come up with a way to remove them from the water. We don't even try now, it wasn't a concern before, so there might be a solution for it but we never bothered with it because this has only just now come to the public's attention.
I'm not advocating anything drastic, I just think there should be a speedy investigation/research into whether or not it's a problem. If it's not, then fine, if it is, then fix it.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
And I live down stream from the retirement center, if you know what that means....
oxicotin, viagra, ciallis, anti-biotics, even a few well known narcotics.
I mean, mister, with a glass or two of this stuff, seriously, you'll be doin it all night long, no pain, no tiredness, and already fightin off the infections you'll be gettin.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by ketchupqueen: This is why you DON'T FLUSH YOUR DRUGS DOWN THE TOILET, people.
Immediately after my MIL's death (3 years ago), a representative from the Hospice came to the house and marked off all the remaining narcotics on a legal list and then flushed them down the toilet. This included large amounts of methadone and morphene. We were told this was what the law required.
I am aghast. All the hospitals here (at least the ones I've asked at) offer "safe drug disposal" and it is against the law to flush drugs, last I was told (although I haven't looked it up.)
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
At the assisted living facility I used to work at, we had the same legal requirements as Rabbit, they needed to be flushed.
Posts: 2064 | Registered: Dec 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
In some cases it was parts per trillion and in some cases parts per billion, it depended on the area. And I just want to know that they're looking into it. We have no idea what a very, very small amount of cocktail of drugs could do to you over years, and years of consumption. A glass of water isn't likely to hurt, but what about 50,000 glasses of water?
No one's calling for anything dramatic, no one seems particularly incensed, though my original post my have come off that was, it was more a deflated lack of confidence in the government than it was any real anger. But I can't imagine anyone would say that there isn't need for a couple studies to be done.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: A glass of water isn't likely to hurt, but what about 50,000 glasses of water?
The thing is, most (all?) of these drugs are not ones that accumulate in the human body -- they get removed by the kidneys. Which is how they ended up in the water to begin with, neh?
What sorts of studies are you suggesting?
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
To see if there is any danger to the environment, that is, non humans much lower in the food chain that could eventually have negative effects on the wider environment.
To make sure (as neither of us are sure that 100% of them don't accumulate), that they don't all accumulate. And are we sure that 100% of them get filtered out, or is it that the body absorbs SOME of it but not all of it, and only the excess makes it out of our systems?
And to make sure that even short term exposure of small amounts over time doesn't have any sort of cumulative effect.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Low dosages, true, but I still think it's worth looking into. I've heard it suggested that the high dosages of growth hormones and antibiotics given to livestock are a likely cause.
As far as growing antibiotic resistant bacteria, that's the larger issue. The concentrations in the drinking water aren't enough to select for resistant bacteria, but maybe the concentrations in the groundwater under a dairy are. Again, worth looking into certainly.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
It is rather difficult to prove a negative. Those are very vague -- and I am not convinced that coming up with something that is realistically testable and something that actually gets the results you are asking for is not mutually exclusive.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm less concerned with antibiotic resistant bacteria than I am with trace amounts of drugs interfering with plankton and other very small bits on the extreme lower end of the food chain. It only takes one link in the chain to screw up a delicate balance.
I don't necessarily need 100% proof rivka. I'm not a scientist or a doctor, so I'm not sure what you'd want from me in the way of specifics. I couldn't give you the names of specific drugs or the species name of the various creatures that might be involved in the process.
But they can start doing random tests in different water supplies that test the things in the water, be they bacteria or plankton or mussels to see if they have trace amounts of the drugs in their systems, do those tests over a few years and see if there are any negative changes to the subjects in question and work their way up the food chain if there is to see how, if at all, it effects us. Is that more what you had in mind?
As for the direct effects on humans, surely they can test as see how much of a drug is absorbed and how much is expelled from our systems right? I've seen studies done before that show people have hundreds of trace chemicals and metals in their bodies from polluted water that they had no idea about, and scientists are only just now starting to actually try and figure out what effects those chemicals might have. Maybe I'll try and find the study later since it seems pertinent to the discussion. I don't need them to prove it 100% false, just try and prove it true, and if they can't, then I'd think that'd be false by default wouldn't it? Isn't that how things generally work?
As for testing short term exposure, assuming there's no accumulation from trace amounts of drugs, couldn't they try and come up with a way to totally purify the water, or better yet, just take two water sources, one contaminated, one not, and compare a test sample of different people in those areas to see if there are any noticeable health differences as an effect of the drugs in the water, or even just check to see if there are differences and go from there. That's just a matter of correlating data.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: As for testing short term exposure, assuming there's no accumulation from trace amounts of drugs, couldn't they try and come up with a way to totally purify the water, or better yet, just take two water sources, one contaminated, one not, and compare a test sample of different people in those areas to see if there are any noticeable health differences as an effect of the drugs in the water, or even just check to see if there are differences and go from there. That's just a matter of correlating data.
Well sure, assuming that you can find two identical populations with water sources which differ only in this single variable.
Barring severe ethics violations, unlikely.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm more worried about this making fish unable to reproduce, or some drug I really don't need bioaccumulating in some commonly-eaten fish species.
Posts: 3354 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: As for testing short term exposure, assuming there's no accumulation from trace amounts of drugs, couldn't they try and come up with a way to totally purify the water, or better yet, just take two water sources, one contaminated, one not, and compare a test sample of different people in those areas to see if there are any noticeable health differences as an effect of the drugs in the water, or even just check to see if there are differences and go from there. That's just a matter of correlating data.
Well sure, assuming that you can find two identical populations with water sources which differ only in this single variable.
Barring severe ethics violations, unlikely.
So create it then. I don't know how hard it is to remove these contaminants, but have one group drink tap and have another group drink specially purified water for however long the people doing the study find it necessary and then compare the results. If they don't differ, or don't differ significantly enough, then we move on.
Do you think we should ignore it and carry on?
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
"a representative from the Hospice came to the house and marked off all the remaining narcotics on a legal list and then flushed them down the toilet. This included large amounts of methadone and morphene."
??? I thought that dispensed-but-unused narcotics were supposed to be turned back in by the professional healthcare provider to the supplier for inventory control, then disposed of by the supplier.
posted
"...assuming that you can find two identical populations with water sources which differ only in this single variable. Barring severe ethics violations, unlikely."
To conduct an effective epidemiological study, all that would be needed is a sufficient number of different populations, each with access to a water supply that differs sufficiently in the concentration of chemicals within it. Then it's all number crunching. Simple number crunching compared to ProteinFolding, nuclear weapons simulations, magnetic-bottle fusion simulations, sorting out CERN particle-collision experiments, etc. Such a study would catch both synergistic interactions between chemicals and genetic variability in reaction to various concentrations, while a study of two identical populations subjected to a single variable would not.
The only reason that such studies are not being done is cuz politicians don't wanna know. Lobbyists are arguing furiously on behalf of their chemical&pharmaceutical source companies (with campaign contributions) that the politicians shouldn't fund such studies "because the knowlege gained would just prove that funding was a waste of money." Because if such studies were to prove that some of the chemicals in the water supply are harmful: . Politicians would have to come up with funding to take care of the problem. . Chemical&pharmaceutical companies would have to reduce their output of pollutants, which they believe would cut into profits. . The chemical source companies would have pay to clean up their water before dumping it back into the commons. And be liable for environmental cleanup costs inregard to longterm buildup, and possible lawsuits over medical harm. . Pharmaceutical companies would have to reduce their sales. Though some part is inevitable, excreting drugs along with bodily waste mostly means that the recommended dosages are too high or/and that the method of getting those drugs within the target organ(s) is wasteful. While drugs tend to degrade quickly enough that longterm buildup is far less likely and thus cleanup costs themselves would be low, the hit for commercial and medical harm could be MUCH higher because drugs are selected/designed specificly to interact with living organisms.
Chemical source companies have good reason to deliberately remain ignorant of the effects of their dumping. Provable pre-knowlege of harm that could be caused to others before dumping creates legal grounds for extraordinarily stiff punitive damages. Thus their own company files are less likely to be useful, and more likely to have been purged of much relevant information. Inre pharmaceutical companies, much-to-most of the info that needs to be crunched is already sitting in their research&development and/or sales offices. Data from water-testing itself will link that info to people who don't use their products directly.
posted
"I suspect that the levels are extremely low and probably don't represent a real safety concern...If these levels aren't high enough to trigger anaphylaxis in highly allergic individuals, its unlikely that they will cause other problems."
Not necessarily true. Those geneticly predisposed to be truly highly allergic could be aborted while still in the womb. ie The result of toxic effects could be hidden within the number of miscarriages. For those less susceptable, contaminants in their water could amplify the effects of allergenic stimuli in much the same way that stochastic background noise allows the listener to discern extremely subtle differences in frequencies&litudes in music. And the results could be hidden-though-seen in the rising numbers of allergy sufferers, asthmatics, and cases of (believed-to-be) auto-immune diseases such as arthritis, Crohn's, lupus, etc
Then there are oddities which have medical researchers scratching their collective heads: . Just a few short years ago, preliminary diagnosis of possible premature menses used to be defined by its occurrence in those under 10years-old. Now it is defined as occurring in girls under 8years-old. . It is becoming ever more common for boys to be born with micropenis and displaced urethral openings (more closely resembling female genitalia). There was a Canadian study ?within the past 10years? which showed that the reported rate had been skyrocketing over the years in which the study covered. . The numbers of children diagnosed as autistic is growing rapidly. There has been a court case decided within the past few weeks which held that the cause of autism in the particular individual harmed was an auto-immune response triggered by the pharmaceutical companies product. . The number of children being treated with psychiatric drugs has undergone almost explosive growth; to the point where what was extremely uncommon has become commonplace, and approaching ever more closely to the norm if trends continue. Admittedly a lot of that could be due to idiot parents and idiot teachers wanting perfect kids shopping through physicians until they find one who will make diagnoses that they are unqualified to make, then prescribe drugs that they are unqualified to prescribe. Then again, many or most of the prescribing physicians could be correct in their actions. And there could be a LOT more kids with brain-chemical imbalances. . The rise in infertility in both men and women. Especially the cases in which the individual sperms and the individual eggs appear healthy, and work together through in vitro fertilization, yet don't produce pregnancies through the method that was normal for all previous human generations. . Etc ad nauseum. The point being that there are a lot of medical problems occurring now that didn't become commonplace until after the dumping of drugs and drug-mimicking chemicals into lakes/rivers/etc became commonplace.
posted
Or studies have been done and no one is bothering to read them.
"In a landmark, seven-year study published last year, researchers turned an entire pristine Canadian lake into their laboratory, deliberately dripping the active ingredient in birth control pills into the water in amounts similar to those found to have contaminated aquatic life, plants and water in nature.
After just seven weeks, male fathead minnows began producing yolk proteins, their gonads shrank, and their behavior was feminized -- they fought less, floating passively. They also stopped reproducing, resulting in "ultimately, a near extinction of this species from the lake," said the scientists."
Posts: 1001 | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
Going back to the idea that small and even trace amounts of the drug could affect highly allergic people. Look in your pantry. In fact, check a bag of M&Ms. It's just one of the foods that contains the warning that it is manufactured on machinery that touches peanuts. Presumably, the amount of peanut oil in a handful of plain M&Ms is minimal if it is present at all. (Certainly in order to prevent plain M&Ms from tasting like peanuts, Mars must clean the machinery between batches, never mind health department regulations.) However, that warning is on the label for a reason, even trace amounts of peanut oil are enough to cause an allergic reaction in someone highly allergic to peanuts.
I'm allergic to several common antibiotics including penicillin, sulfa and cechlor (and yes all you medicos that does mean that I don't get to take much, it was really exciting when I tried one of the newer antibiotics this year and didn't have a reaction). In fact, the amount of sulfa that can sometimes be found in milk is enough to make me sick. I've had to switch to organic milk to avoid the problem. When the FDA realized over 10 years ago that sulfa was making its way in to milk, reports stated that levels weren't high enough to cause problems, even for people with allergies. For years I thought I was lactose intolerant, however, when a family friend read the reports and told me about it, I tried organic milk, and I could drink as much as I wanted without getting sick. If I were lactose intolerant, organic milk wouldn't have made a difference.
If the trace amounts of sulfa that can sometimes be found in milk (farmers aren't supposed to use sulfa drugs in dairy cows anymore, but it sometimes happens anyway) is enough to make me sick what could ingesting the trace amounts found in water do? Is it a lesser amount or greater? And even if it is a lesser amount, I tend to consume more water than milk as caused by years of milk avoidance when it would make me sick.
You can see why I might be a little concerned. I'm not going to boycott water or start a revolution over it (obviously boycotting water is simply not feasible) but I would like to see a study determining if this is really something I need to be concerned about. At the very least I'd like to see some form of water filtration that would remove these drugs from my drinking water. Even if it's just a new and improved type of Brita filter. Then I don't have to worry about it, even if I do have to pay a little more every few months for my water filters.
Edit: Then again this last statement isn't really true, because I eat salmon. And if the salmon that I eat live in rivers and streams that have this drugs in them, and they absorb the drugs, then I could be eating the drugs in higher concentrations when I eat salmon, in addition to the amount that I consume when I am drinking. And the problem would seem to grow, as we get higher on the food chain. Oh well.
Posts: 1214 | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Going back to the idea that small and even trace amounts of the drug could affect highly allergic people. Look in your pantry. In fact, check a bag of M&Ms. It's just one of the foods that contains the warning that it is manufactured on machinery that touches peanuts. Presumably, the amount of peanut oil in a handful of plain M&Ms is minimal if it is present at all. (Certainly in order to prevent plain M&Ms from tasting like peanuts, Mars must clean the machinery between batches, never mind health department regulations.) However, that warning is on the label for a reason, even trace amounts of peanut oil are enough to cause an allergic reaction in someone highly allergic to peanuts.
But you missed the point. I know people who are sufficiently allergic to peanuts that they can't even be in the same room with someone who has just eaten peanuts without going in to anaphylactic shock. We know that trace amounts of peanuts found in processed foods are a problem because these people end up in the emergency room all the time from this kind of exposure.
I also know people who are sufficiently allergic to penicillin that they can't drink milk from cows that have been fed antibiotics or eat eggs from chickens fed on antibiotics. They know this because they have ended up in the emergency room from eating these foods.
I do not know or know of anyone who has had an anaphylactic reaction from drinking tap water. If the levels of these drugs in tap water were high enough to be a problem, we would know about it because people would be reacting. They aren't!
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
But how do you know? Really, if it's someone who's highly allergic to EVERYTHING (and there are people like that out there) it could be attributed to possible exposure to something else, particularly if the end result isn't death but a trip to the emergency room and a treatment. Never mind the fact that daily regular exposure to something you are allergic to can't be healthy, even if it's not a large enough amount to actually cause a reaction.
It could even contribute to making allergies worse, even if the minimal daily exposure isn't enough to cause a reaction. Epi Pins and other treatments for severe allergies don't work forever, eventually there will come a day when that shot that used to be enough to save the life of someone with a severe allergy doesn't work. The body builds up an immunity to it. Trace amounts of drugs that I'm allergic to could make my reaction worse if I'm exposed to it in larger quantities.
When I found out I was allergic to cechlor, I didn't show a reaction for 3 days. However, in the 3 days that I was on the drug, a sufficient quantity had built up in my blood stream that I had to be on a round of prednizone for 7 days to prevent my reaction from getting any worse.
Gradual long term exposure to trace amounts of drugs has not been studied, so we really have no way of knowing whether or not this has a negative impact on the human body. I'm not saying that I'm going to run in fear of my tap water, and start handing out leaflets about the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide, but it's worth studying in detail over the long term.
Posts: 1214 | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
We also might not know if there were long-term accumulative genetic or hormonal effects. Those might not even be evident until later generations.
But I don't see an easy way to test these things. How can you really be absolutely sure that the difference between the consumers of two different water supplies is the result of pharmaceutical contaminants, rather than, say, trace amounts of arsenic, lead, benzene, or any of a hundred other natural and unnatural contaminants that are likely to be found in any water supply (and likely to differ between any two water supplies?) It's not like anyone's water is entirely pure H20, even if you take the pharm aspect out of the equation.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
You don't seem to have read my posts or clearly understand the issues involved.
There is no way within the laws of physics to remove every last molecule a antibiotic (or anything else) from the drinking water. It isn't simply a matter of making a better Brita filter -- it can't be done with less than an infinite expenditure of time and energy. But such precautions aren't necessary because there are safe levels of exposure for everything and those levels usually are well above the levels we can measure.
That is why it is important that we do more studies to establish safe levels and do a better job of treating and monitoring our water supply to insure those levels aren't exceeded. But we must accept that there may always be some low level of these things in our water and understand that this is not necessarily a safety concern even for very sensitive individuals.
Right now, there is no evidence that the levels of pharmaceuticals in the water supply are dangerous. If they were we would expect to see things happening that we don't see. Until further studies have been done to establish safe levels, we can take comfort in the fact that thousands of people aren't in the emergency room suffering from anaphylactic shock because they got penicillin in the drinking water.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Laugh]](graemlins/laugh.gif)
