Pharmaceutical Drugs in Drinking Water?

How do pharmaceutical drugs get in drinking water in the first place? Recently we learned that an investigative probe finds drugs in drinking water samples taken from cities across the United States, but Americans are not alone.

The same problem has been found in Japan, Canada and Europe. It is likely a problem anywhere in the world with a fairly large population. But, any small town with a hospital probably shares in the risk.

Hospitals are one answer to how do pharmaceutical drugs get in drinking water. They commonly flush discontinued and expired medications every month. The things that we flush end up in the environment. They may end up in a river, an ocean or the groundwater, but at some point they contaminate the freshwater sources that people drink from.

That’s one reason the probe finds drugs in drinking water, but there are others. All of the medications that a person takes are not used by the body, some are excreted as waste. So, once again, it is flushed down the drain and ends up back in the great outdoors.

Another source of surface water contamination, such as rivers and lakes, is farm run-off. The run-off is a source of a variety of contaminants, including parasitic cysts, E-coli and other bacteria, but because farmers place hormone patches behind the ears of cattle to “beef” them up, it is another reason the probe finds drugs in drinking water.

Pets are a source in the same way as people are, except that they urinate directly on the ground, for the most part. If they are not flushed, unwanted medications end up in the trash can and eventually in a landfill, where they are buried and with time seep into the soil and into groundwater.

There is really no safe way to expose of anything in this society. Everything that we use ends up contaminating surface and groundwater at some point. But, there is another question. How do pharmaceutical drugs get in drinking water that has already been treated?

Scientists say that if wastewater treatment facilities used reverse osmosis and ultrafiltration, they could remove practically all of the medications and avoid returning them to the environment. Then if the proper steps were taken by the drinking water treatment facilities, they could remove even more of the medications.

But, since the probe finds drugs in drinking water ready to be sent to the public, the facilities are obviously not doing their jobs. The steps required are expensive for large scale facilities and, of course, it would slow down production to make the necessary changes. So, don’t expect the situation to improve overnight or even over the next decade.

The Real Reason Pharmaceutical Drugs Get in Drinking Water?

You’ve read the stories about medical waste like syringes washing up on the shores of public beaches. While this is alarming enough, now a similar threat is turning up in our water supplies. Drugs are being found in water supplies across the country. But how do pharmaceutical drugs get in drinking water?

Initially, individuals take drugs in a pill or other format. While the human body absorbs most of the medication, a good portion of the drug is eliminated as body waste and is flushed into the sewer system. Next, this wastewater is treated before it is released into reservoirs, rivers or lakes. After that, some of the water is treated at drinking water treatment facilities and then routed to public water supplies. But what happens is that only a large amount of the treatment plants do not effectively remove all drug particles.

You might have seen the recent headline: AP probe finds drugs in drinking water? Such media attention literally rocked the government and environmental community. It all started when the Associate Press began a five-month investigation to learn what’s in our drinking water. The agency found that drugs have been detected in the drinking water supplies of 24 major metropolitan areas like New York City, Philadelphia and Detroit; to name a few.

So what are the risks from having these medications in our water? While researchers do not yet understand the exact risks from decades of slow exposure to different combinations of pharmaceuticals, recent studies have found disturbing effects on human cells and animals.

We already asked the question how do pharmaceutical drugs get in drinking water? So how do we get them out? One technology is called reverse osmosis. It removes virtually all pharmaceutical contaminants. However, it is highly expensive when used on a big scale. Plus, it also leaves several gallons of polluted water for every one that is made clean. And finally, this process strips water of really essential minerals that our body’s need.

Other treatment processes add chorine to water to get rid of the drugs. But that method has its drawbacks too. There’s proof that adding chlorine to water makes some pharmaceuticals more toxic. 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 set up to remove pharmaceuticals.

With the lack of resources available to filter the drugs out of water, how harmful is it? So much is still unknown. Many independent scientists are skeptical that trace concentrations of drugs will prove harmful to humans. Such reasoning has been established because the studies conducted poisoned the lab animals with much higher doses of the drugs.

When a probe finds drugs in drinking water, it causes experts to look deeper into the long-term effects on people. For example, there’s the issue abut how the drugs and the combinations of drugs can harm humans over decades because water, unlike most specific foods, is consumed in large amounts on a daily basis.

This recent topic as of late is “how do pharmaceutical drugs get in drinking water?” but for many decades, federal environmental officials and non-profit watchdog groups were focused on how contaminants in water. Such substances as pesticides, lead, PCBs were the big concerns of the past.

Today, the scientific community is worried about the long-term implications of this problem. The fact of the matter is that our bodies can resist a relatively big dose of medication in one shot. But our systems can suffer from smaller doses ingested continuously over periodic use. This can slowly mess with our allergies or cause nerve damage. What’s more, women who are expecting, senior citizens and those who are weak and very ill might be much more sensitive.

If you walk away with only one thing from reading this, be safer with what your drink. Look into a home water purification device or contact your local water authority to see where you stand in this mess. In fact, some of the experts feel that medications may pose a unique danger because, unlike most pollutants, because they were designed to specifically affect the human body.

Julie Perry graduated with a Diploma in Applied Science and is a fully qualified Naturopath. On her web site [http://www.healthysafewater.com], you will find out a practical and simple way to always have fresh, healthy water throughout your home. Learn more about how pharmaceutical drugs get in drinking water.