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."

Comments

Re:Stuart

[infonography]

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http://www.plyrics.com/lyrics/deadmilkmen/stuart.html

oh, and watch out for that Johnny Werzner kid.

Re:Perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

I like to think I'm an average America. I'm on two prescription drugs. Tramadol, an opiate-like painkiller, and Xanax, an anti-anxiety drug. I also can get hydrocodone but it actually doesn't work as well for me as the other stuff.

But anyway, I don't see this as a bad thing necessarily. Just the fact that people are taking more medication now than 50 or 100 years ago isn't a problem, because a lot of the diseases and maladies these drugs are treating simply would have went untreated in times before. People didn't have less medical problems back then, they just had no way of getting them fixed. We also recognize things as valid medical problems that once were not, such as depression and anxiety. If pharmaceuticals allow people to live better lives then I'd call that progress.

There are some problems in the system. Medicine probably shouldn't be run as a business in the traditional sense, and over-prescribing of drugs is also a legitimate concern in many cases (and a direct side effect of the first problem).

Re:False positives?

[Trogre]

Oh good, after months of waiting I finally have mod points that I can use on posts I disagree with, like this one.

So, Hektor_Troy's post, I hope you enjoyed your brief moment at Score:2 - prepare to be modded down to oblivion, right after I post this comment.