Slashdot Mirror
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."
Let me be the first one to welcome our free-drug distributing overlords!
I'm more worried about all the DHMO in the water! There's way more than a few parts per trillion!
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
Worse than this, concentrations of the deadly liquid menace DHMO have been detected in concentrations of over 400 parts per million - concentrations far in excess of the amounts they're worried about here. Yet the media refuses to comment upon the horrible and devastating consequences of this fluid toxin, which directly resulted in the deaths of over 300,000 people in 2004 alone!
Of course, this it OT, but this is as good a time as any to quote why we must protect them. Courtesy of Dr. Strangelove.
Ripper: Mandrake?
Mandrake: Yes, Jack?
Ripper: Have you ever seen a Commie drink a glass of water?
Mandrake: Well, I can't say I have.
Ripper: Vodka, that's what they drink, isn't it? Never water?
Mandrake: Well, I-I believe that's what they drink, Jack, yes.
Ripper: On no account will a Commie ever drink water, and not without good reason.
Mandrake: Oh, eh, yes. I, uhm, can't quite see what you're getting at, Jack.
Ripper: Water, that's what I'm getting at, water. Mandrake, water is the source of all life. Seven-tenths of this earth's surface is water. Why, do you realize that seventy percent of you is water?
Mandrake: Uh, uh, Good Lord!
Ripper: And as human beings, you and I need fresh, pure water to replenish our precious bodily fluids.
Mandrake: Yes. (he begins to chuckle nervously)
Ripper: Are you beginning to understand?
Mandrake: Yes. (more laughter)
Ripper: Mandrake. Mandrake, have you never wondered why I drink only distilled water, or rain water, and only pure-grain alcohol?
Mandrake: Well, it did occur to me, Jack, yes.
Ripper: Have you ever heard of a thing called fluoridation. Fluoridation of water?
Mandrake: Uh? Yes, I-I have heard of that, Jack, yes. Yes.
Ripper: Well, do you know what it is?
Mandrake: No, no I don't know what it is, no.
Ripper: Do you realize that fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous Communist plot we have ever had to face?
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Dihydrogen Monoxide.
Some effects:
Death due to accidental inhalation of DHMO, even in small quantities.
Prolonged exposure to solid DHMO causes severe tissue damage.
DHMO is a major component of acid rain.
Gaseous DHMO can cause severe burns.
Leads to corrosion and oxidation of many metals.
Found in biopsies of pre-cancerous tumors and lesions.
see http://www.dhmo.org/