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Stories of Drugs in Drinking Water
The story about drugs in drinking water has been on the front pages of newspapers, blogs, and top stories of television news lately. The story has been attributed to the result of an Associated Press investigation showing low level of pharmaceutical drugs in drinking water in US major cities. The fact is this in not actually news? A similar investigation was been conducted by another news outlet several years ago, and with similar conclusions:
Date |
Journal |
Result of Investigation |
1997 |
International Journal of Environmental Analytical Chemistry
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About 100 drug types were found in rivers, lake, and coastal waters in Europe and United States. Several types of drugs like cholesterol regulators, anti-seizure medications, drug metabolites, and analgesics were found in the surface waters that were studied. Some of these contaminants were found in the drinking water samples that were collected in several water treatment plants in Europe. |
1998 |
Water Research |
1999 |
Chemistry and Ecology |
Scientists associated abnormal fish reproduction with exposure to sewage. |
It is a good thing that the issue of drug in drinking water is now brought to the surface. A lot should have been done sooner. The fact is drugs in are not the only contaminants that get into drinking water through the wastewater treatment plants. Everyone ought to be educated about the harmful effects of combined sewer overflows (CSO) on our waterways. Sewer systems that carry storm runoffs, sanitary wastewater, and industrial wastewater are called combined sewers.
Combined sewer systems are sewers that are designed to collect rainwater runoff, domestic sewage, and industrial wastewater in the same pipe. Most of the time, combined sewer systems transport all of their wastewater to a sewage treatment plant, where it is treated and then discharged to a water body. During periods of heavy rainfall or snowmelt, however, the wastewater volume in a combined sewer system can exceed the capacity of the sewer system or treatment plant. For this reason, combined sewer systems are designed to overflow occasionally and discharge excess wastewater directly to nearby streams, rivers, or other water bodies.- USEPA
Not only drugs from household wastes can get into our drinking water supplies. CSO and other sources may result in potentially harmful pathogenic bacteria, giardia and viruses. These contaminants as well as drugs are likely to get into drinking water water when CSOs are not properly addresed.
Sanitary sewer overflows (SSO), septic tanks failures are some of ways our drinking water supply can be contaminated.
What you need to do:
Know what’s in your drinking water. Find out what contaminants you have in your water. Know the waters around you as well as your water supply source. Know your watershed. It’s amazing how many people don’t understand what a watershed is.
If you are concern about a possible water contamination either in the water supply or in your plumbing system, have your water tested. Some tests can be performed without the help of a certified laboratory. There are several home test kits that can perform such tests as chlorine and pH levels in your water. Public water suppliers generally provide annual test results of contaminants in drinking water. Well water owners may need to find out what's in their water. You may contact your state health or environmental departments for information on a certified laboratory in your area.
Here is a series of news event surrounding the issue of drugs in drinking water. We begin with these video clips of the "breaking news" around the country.
Pharmaceuticals In Drinking Water Raise Awareness Of Need To Increase Monitoring Of Municipal Water Supplies
Applied Biosystems/MDS SCIEX provides advanced technology and “application note” for municipal water supplymunicipal water supply operators to increase effectiveness of water testing
Responding to the highly publicized, independent investigation of a wide variety of pharmaceuticals found in drinking water across the United States, Applied Biosystems/MDS SCIEX is providing a water testing “application note” to help municipal water supply operators improve the monitoring of water for contaminants.
Amid concerns rising about the potential negative effects of pharmaceuticals in drinking water, municipal water supply centers are responding by planning to acquire new tools and methods to conduct water testing more effectively. Water testing systems need to be robust and sensitive to detect extremely low levels of pharmaceutical residues, which get into the water supply by passing through people and flushed down the toilet. Ineffective testing can result in faulty reports that say that no pharmaceuticals are present in a water supply when, in reality, pharmaceuticals are present in tiny, but bioactive amounts.
Read more from the source:
Applied Biosytems
City to begin testing water for meds
Phoenix plans to begin testing its water for pharmaceuticals, after reports that prescription and over-the-counter drugs and personal care products have contaminated the nation's waters.
Scottsdale also is looking into beginning tests on drinking water, after finding traces of pharmaceuticals in wastewater. “Phoenix will be testing its water for pharmaceuticals, and we're not waiting for the EPA or anyone else to proceed,” Mayor Phil Gordon said. “We're doing it. Clean water is important. Healthy water is important. The health of our residents is important. "
Gordon made reference to an investigative series recently conducted by the Associated Press.
“Our water is safe and healthy,” he said. “But given the AP's recent story on pharmaceutical traces being found in Lake Mead and in some national wastewater samples, we want to reassure the public, science in hand, that our drinking water is healthy.”
An article in the Las Vegas Review-Journal pointed out that at least nine trace pharmaceuticals have been identified in Lake Mead's water, some of which eventually reaches Phoenix via the Central Arizona Project. The article quoted a Las Vegas Water Authority spokesman as saying the chemicals posed no hazard.
Research being conducted at Arizona State University also has found evidence of chemicals called endocrine disruptors in Salt River Project water.
Read more from the source: AZ Central
Drugs in water could affect human cells
Troubled by drugs discovered in European waters, poisons expert and biologist Francesco Pomati set up an experiment: He exposed developing human kidney cells to a mixture of 13 drugs at levels mimicking those found in Italian rivers.
There were drugs to fight high cholesterol and blood pressure, seizures and depression, pain and infection, and cancer, all in tiny amounts.
The result: The pharmaceutical blend slowed cell growth by up to a third—suggesting that scant amounts may exert powerful effects, said Pomati, who works at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.
Taken alone, this was a modest study. But in fact Pomati's work is part of a body of emerging scientific studies that indicate that over time, humans could be harmed by ingesting drinking water contaminated with tiny amounts of pharmaceuticals.
In another recently published study, Pomati discovered that some of those pharmaceuticals could amplify—or reverse—the effects of some others.
For example, the cholesterol drug bezafibrate and asthma drug salbutamol each seem to stimulate cell growth. Combined in the laboratory, they slowed it way down. The same cholesterol drug appeared to make cells more sensitive to harm from the antibiotic fluoroquinolone.
And Pomati's work indicates some drugs cause cellular effects at scant concentrations that—strangely—cannot be seen at higher levels.
Such findings are preliminary; they alone cannot demonstrate the same effects within the human body. But they provide scientific hints, just like cellular experiments that routinely guide discovery of new drugs.
In research awaiting publication, human breast cancer cells grew twice as fast when exposed to estrogens taken from catfish caught near untreated sewage overflows in Pennsylvania, compared with other fish.
The University of Pittsburgh researchers didn't calculate how much effect came from pharmaceuticals instead of natural hormones, but their earlier work points to birth-control pills and hormone treatments as important contributors, said lead researcher Conrad Volz.
"There is the potential for an increased risk for those people who are prone to estrogenic cancer," said Volz, who studies environmental hazards at the university's Cancer Institute.
He said people who regularly drink water containing low levels of hormones may be at higher risk, since they would presumably consume more of these drugs than those who only occasionally eat such fish.
Scientists at the Helmholtz research center in Leipzig, Germany, linked low levels of the pain reliever diclofenac to an inflammatory-like response in human blood cells, according to biologist Kristin Schirmer. Inflammation at the wrong time and place plays a role in conditions ranging from infections and arthritis to heart disease.
But these studies haven't used water samples analyzed for drugs. Instead, the studies estimate danger from what's known about how much of a drug is sold and how toxic it is to animals. Then, safety margins are added for unknowns, such as possible effects of decades of exposure.
The studies usually ignore what might happen to people exposed to the complex combinations of medicines that are often found in drinking water.
Then, there are the byproducts of the drugs. When medications are digested and processed through water treatment plants, they may take a new metabolic form.
"They miss some of the big issues. Our research shows mixtures are so prevalent," said Dana Kolpin, a U.S. Geological Survey water expert who launched a plethora of research in 2002 after finding pharmaceuticals in most samples taken from 139 streams in 30 states. "If there are any cumulative or additive issues, you can't just dismiss things so quickly."
Read more from the source:Mercury News
Illinois EPA promotes pharmaceutical disposal alternatives
After a study found trace amounts of pharmaceuticals in the drinking water supply of 24 major metropolitan areas nationwide, Illinois Environmental Protection Agency is offering a safe way to dispose of hazardous household waste.
The EPA advises people not to flush pharmaceuticals down the toilet or pour them down the drain because wastewater treatment plants and septic systems do not treat such waste and the drugs can end up in drinking water.
A disposal site will be set-up on June 7 in Valmeyer at Lake Road and Illinois 156. The site will properly dispose of outdated or unused pharmaceuticals as well as other household items. A full list of acceptable items is available at www.epa.state.il.us.
In a related matter, on the second and fourth Thursday of every month from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Schnucks pharmacies accept and dispose of all forms of medicine except for narcotics and other controlled substances.
Read more from the source: News Democrat
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