Prescription drugs in some water supplies?

 

 

Traces of 51 drugs have been detected in the wastewater that Burlington, Vermont,  residents flush or pour down their drainsWater2 and that ends up in Lake Champlain. Researchers at the University of Vermont and the United States Geological Survey found that levels of caffeine and nicotine in the water drop as college students leave for summer break, followed by increases in the relative amounts of drugs used by older people, such as diabetes and heart medications.

 

Burlington is not unique. “Pharmaceuticals are found in about eighty percent of the surface waters tested in the United States,” says University of Vermont scientist Christine Vatovec.

Which drugs are they?

 

Antibiotics, antidepressants, and other prescription medications, as well as caffeine.

 

How do they get into drinking water? Drug residues that people excrete are flushed down toilets. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently tested wastewater effluent from 50 of the biggest water utilities. (That’s treated sewage, which is released into rivers and lakes that may be used as sources of drinking water.) Traces of at least one prescription drug turned up in every sample.

 

How can these drug residues harm you? They probably don’t, says the EPA’s Mitch Kostich. The amounts are so minuscule “that you would have to drink two quarts of wastewater every day for decades, usually for an entire lifetime, before you would be exposed to even one therapeutic dose,” he says.MedsinH2O

 

How do you know if they’re in your water? You don’t. Water utilities aren’t required to include prescription drugs in the “Consumer Confidence Report” most big water utilities are required to make available to their customers.

I've seen a couple of student posters on drug/chemical contaminants in the mighty Rio Grande.  Sunscreen and DEET (mosquito repellent) are also often seen.  Look hard enough and you can find all sorts of stuff.  So yeah, stuff is there, but there's not a lot of it.  I'd be more worried about lead, mercury, arsenic or petrochemical industry contamination to be honest - especially in this age of Making America Great Again.

I've seen a couple of student posters on drug/chemical contaminants in the mighty Rio Grande.  Sunscreen and DEET (mosquito repellent) are also often seen.  Look hard enough and you can find all sorts of stuff.  So yeah, stuff is there, but there's not a lot of it.  I'd be more worried about lead, mercury, arsenic or petrochemical industry contamination to be honest - especially in this age of Making America Great Again.

 

 

:laugh: