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Drugs In Our Drinking Water
MikeURL alerts to a AP story just published after a months-long investigation on the vast array of pharmaceuticals present in US drinking water. These include antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers, and sex hormones, as well as over-the-counter drugs. Quoting: "To be sure, the concentrations of these pharmaceuticals are tiny, measured in quantities of parts per billion or trillion, far below the levels of a medical dose. Also, utilities insist their water is safe. But the presence of so many prescription drugs — and over-the-counter medicines like acetaminophen and ibuprofen — in so much of our drinking water is heightening worries among scientists of long-term consequences to human health."
Whenever I hear folks talking on the subject of bottled water vs. tap water, or water quality in general, I'm reminded of a study (which I'm too lazy to look up) conducted by a network news show a few years back. Turned out that bottled water was much less sanitary and clean than tap water.
Why? Because tap water has teams of people objectively surveying its quality, unmotivated by profit. And bottled water has very little regulation, at least when measured against the regulation required around tap water.
I, for one, drink either tap water or filtered tap water. These bottled water companies can take a hike, as far as I'm concerned.
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Just think of the consequences if homeopathic remedies - which are supposed to work better with minuscule quantities of an "active" ingredient - get into our drinking water, too?
Just think of the consequences if homeopathy actually worked.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Even cyanide will not significantly affect you in proportions of a few parts per billion. You get a lot more than that from a handful of almonds. As for parts per trillion... just forget it. It isn't worth bothering about.
If you want something to worry about, then start worrying about the antibiotics and growth hormones used in cattle and chickens. That is something real, with documented effects.
That's just ridiculous, when you think about the number of "X milligram of ingredient Y" pills people must be taking for detectable amounts to be showing up in drinking water after being diluted and filtered that many times.
Women on birth control. Men on aspirin regimens. Antidepressants. Allergy medications. Over the counter painkillers like tylenol and ibuprofin.
A huge amount of this stuff passes right through our bodies and into the septic system. What about all those bottles of medication that don't get used fully, or sit in your cabinet for those just-in-cases, and then expire? Most people flush the stuff or chuck it in the wastebasket.
If you don't see the problem there, please go read Silent Spring, right now. Or go read about how PCBs made their way from Springfield, MA to the other side of the planet. Now think about how we tell pregnant women not to eat too much tuna, lest they get a dangerous dosage of mercury that could harm their child. Wake up, man.
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