The Lancer Link

Is our Drinking Water Medicating Us?

Monday, April 07, 2008 By Tad H.

Drinking water is the most accessible and used liquid in the U.S. Many Americans put their faith in the Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water (OGWDW) to help keep the water suppy as safe and clean as possible. In recent months, more and more reports of contaminated water have been surfacing all around the United States. U.S. and Canadian scientists did experiments on the water supply in major cities, and an astonishing number came up: Water that supplies more than 41 million Americans has been tainted with pharmaceutical drugs; including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, (a drug mostly used in treatment of bipolar disorder and certain seizures), mood stabilizers and sex hormones, to name a few. Many Americans simply ask one question: how do these drugs get into the water supply so easily and undetected? It is actually quite straightforward, people just take pills. The human body can only absorb so much of the drug in their system. After that, the rest is flushed down the toilet through urine or feces. Usually the contaminated water is treated before its put back into reservoirs, rivers or lakes, re-treated, and let back as drinking water. But not all treatments remove all drug residues. Scientists still do not yet have a grip on the consequences of longtime exposure to these drugs in our water supply. Many studies have found disturbing effects on human and wildlife cells. Many major cities that were tested had about four to seven pharmaceutical drugs in the water supply. These alarming results show how bad the situation truly is. Even users of bottled water and home filtration systems do not avoid exposure. Bottlers, some of which simply repackage tap water, do not routinely test for pharmaceuticals or treat for them. Most of the studies done per city only looked for certain drugs, who knows how many different drugs are in our water? We know we are being exposed to other people's drugs through our drinking water and that can't be good. The only system that totally removes these drugs from the water system is reverse osmosis, but this system is very expensive. Perhaps it is time for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to get involved.