The federal government requires no testing and has set no safe limit for pharmeceuticals in our water? Does America not love me anymore?

I've always said it was something in the water that was giving white girls in Montgomery County such phat booties. Could I have been right?

-Disclaimer-

Above was a joke. Kind of. What can I say, I like a rotund backside!

arise, I would imagine that the booties are phat because a of the high level of growth hormones in our meat and dairy supply.

Buy WATER FILTERS... there are many quality hard and uv faucet and shower filters readily available. The only thing you should be using tap water for is mopping your floor.

Can anyone help me find a company or school that can test bottled water? (it's still hard to trust where their water is coming from.)

Also, I know of several systems to collect and reuse rainwater and runnoff for gardening, and even 'brown-water systems'. Does anyone know of any low-cost or low-maintenace ways of collecting and filtering water for drinking?

Bottled water is one of the most frustrating marketed products. An article like this may ignite a bottled water "rush" which is essentially reinforcing a possible privatization of our drinking water. Has anyone checked AP's funding for this project? Nestle? Poland Spring? Dasani-Coke? I'm certainly not down-playing the results. It is quite frightening what residuals are found in our drinking water, but my tendencies are to suspect such articles....
Avoid bottled water, buy filters, organize advanced water filter purchases at local co-op's, get off the grid and tap into well water, find a way around purchasing bottled water!

AP is a non-profit cooperative of reporters. I think the only remotely safe drinking water is distilled water. Steam distillation not only kills the microbes but gets rid of literally everything but the water. This is just another example of why people must take back their government. We the People are the government. The only serious way to correct the problem with these rotten crooked sociopathic idiots is to make all giving and receiving of money or other property of any kind in politics a felony.

Tap water. MMMMMMMMM...Deeeeeeeeelish!

What would W.C. Fields say if he were alive today ?

Fish pissing in water would be but a minor concern.

We have to be careful here. These attacks on tap water largely play into the hands of the privatizers, forcing the consumer into a having to spend their way to healthier water, while the poor must satisfy themselves with increasingly poor quality tap water.

It does indeed seem very suspicious that the AP - the king of corporate media, would suddenly become a Naderesque crusader for teh consumer.

but a few points:

1. These very small amonts of pharmecuticals are being found in whole watersheds and even aquifers - the result of their use in livestock.

2. Only reverse osmosis is effective - and leaves a concentrated waste that goes - where else - back into the river from where it came.

3. Distillation is effective but energy intensive. With typical efficencies, it takes the energy equivalent of a gallon of gasoline t0 produce 10 gallons of distilled water.

4. The only solution is to reign in the over-use of prescription drugs.

5. The concentrations of the pharmecuticals are so small that they may not be a problem anyway.

Don't be surprised if Big Pharma tries to charge us for taking their drugs without paying. Just like the makers of genetically modified crops sue farmers when the wind carries seed and pollen between fields.

Our planet is a closed system with hundreds of thousands of factories churning out toxic chemicals - pesticides, herbicides, drugs, cosmetics, cleaning agents etc, etc, etc - the environment is where they all eventually come to rest. Before long it may well be impossible to locate any food, water or air which is toxin- and carcinogen-free.

Here we go again with another breathless scare story.

Look, folks, everything we eat, drink, breathe, wear and handle, particularly the kind of wooly brown organic natural stuff everybody likes to pretend is somehow pure these days, is actually loaded with molecules that have various kinds and levels of biological activity.

The crucial question is not what kind of molecule, what kind of biological activity, but how much of the molecule and how active.

And yeah, there can be interactions and cumulative effects from multiple molecules, whether those molecules are "natural" or are considered "pollutants." So there is nothing unique to pharmaceutical molecules about possible interaction effects.

Listing categories of drugs that have been found in drinking water, in whatever vanishing quantities the latest laboratory analytical methods are capable of detecting, would be junk science if it claimed to be science at all, but here it only claims to be political journalism.

The question is how much of these drugs, how much are people exposed to relative to the drugs' potencies, and what effects, if any, might this be expected to have?

The article here does not even address this issue in a credible way. Could there be a problem? I suppose there could be, although it sounds rather unlikely if the source is human consumed pharmaceuticals recycled through waste treatment plants. Should someone be looking at it? Sounds like they are.

AP should let us know when there is some credible evidence of an actual problem. None is presented here.

To share in spirit of health:

there's an evil called strontium-90--comes from nuclear reactors and is in air/water--you may want to check out for yourself as I understand it is ONLY RO (Reverse Osmosis) filters--NOT Distillation--that will remove. And same with Uranium--again please check for yourself, do your own research.

As far as water filters go, I must agree that reverse osmosis is certainly safer, but it wastes SO much water in our already parched world!

Re. water filters, we may get the best recommendations from "Consumer Reports" because they take no ads.

I live in one of the cities that tested negative for these contaminants, Austin, TX, but I have to say that, whether this report is hyped or not, it will be another boon to bottled water corporations, even though bottled water has been found to contain carcinogenic plastic leachates itself and even though the waste from the bottles is creating its own crisis. In addition, the water for the bottled water is often taken from communities that need it, forcing them to then rely on outside bottled water themselves, all of which advances the cause of privatization of everything essential. What's needed after discovering these substances in our drinking water is not increased reliance on privatized, bottled water but increased regulation to get these substances out of our water. Unfortunately, as the sarcastic "tap water - delicious!" comment above indicates, there's now a media-created, peer pressure-enforced fashion bias against tap water and in favor of bottled water. This will take some doing to set right.

I agree with several several posts above citing suspicion that the AP release is doing the work for the bottled water industry, one of the biggest hoaxes now being perpetrated on the consumer. Also, there are several efficient faucet filters that remove much of the contaminents (heavy metals,chlorine,etc.; not sure if pharms would be -check out PUR and BRITTA websites for particulars).

I listened to "the People's Pharmacy", last weekend; the second of a two-part program on endocrine disruptors in the environment. Very scary info by highly accredited doctors and researchers. pdf available on line. Connections between drugs, chemicals, and combinations now occuring in the environment and just some of the alarming effects from exposure. Everything from dioxin release from microwaved plastics to DES daughters to sexual changes in alligator's genetalia and resulting reproductive diminution.

The accumulation of chemicals, pharms, toxins in the food supply is concentrated in the milk and meat of animals and in the plants we are sold to eat. The excreted toxins flushed from our systems and the systems of the animals raised in CAFO's and the run-off from chemically farmed land ends up back in the environment via air and water, eventually ending up in the groundwater where the cycle begins again with higher levels of contamination.

Eat organic foods and/or raise your own, know your local farmer, join a CSA. Work for a cleaner, saner planet. Don't accept the status quo! We can get better.

Read "Consumer Reports". They accept no ads.

Following on my suspicion:
Looking into this further I discovered that one of the head researchers on this subject has a US patent for something called "Purifying Contaminated Water"

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4387025.html

US Patent number 4387025
Not being well versed in water purification I'm not really clear on what exactly this patent is for.
If there is someone more versed I would be interested in any info they could provide.

This report may frighten people into buying bottled water, but remember folks, those filters also cost quite a bit over a year.

Meanwhile ...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andy-borowitz/bush-reveals-tap-water-as_b_90750.html

So long as people are seduced into taking these chemical drugs,so long will this problem persist and grow. Who knows what effect this is having on wildlife in rivers, lakes ponds and the ocean.

Modern industrial medicine is as much a pollutant as heavy industry: just not so well known.

"Water? Never touch the stuff; fish f**k in it.", said W.C. Fields, but now we have pharmaceutical companies f**king WITH it. One hundred and eighty-four million prescriptions for anti-depressants were written last year, and all that stuff has to go somewhere. Who knows how many 'Mother's little helpers', pain pills, and growth hormone prescriptions were consumed in this country over the past 30-40 years, or worse yet how much of the neuro-toxin ASPARTAME has leached itself into our water supply (thank ole Donald Rumsfield for that travesty against the people---yes, the same old scumbag we are all too familiar with---good riddance!).

Americans now spend over $125 billion on 'recreational' drugs, mostly from organic sources though rather than unknown chemical compounds cooked up in some unknown lab. Frankly, I would feel much safer if the drugs detected in our water supply were LSD. At least that might explain why so many people seem so crazy & out of touch with reality these days.

Bottled water? W.C wouldn't touch that stuff either I am sure, especially after numerous recent reports show a full 40% is nothing but tap water, in carcinogenic containers, often shipped as much as 1500 miles, at un-necessary expense & wasted oil to do so. Get a grip folks! Get a canteen and fill it with tap (or distilled) water, improve your health, AND help the air you fill your lungs with be healthier, too.

For an analysis of the contaminants in bottled water and the various levels of "purity" in the different brands of bottled water, check out the Natural Resources Defense Council report "Bottled Water: Pure Drink or Pure Hype?" The link is www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/nbw.asp

Read the fine print folks:

"The concentrations of these pharmaceuticals are tiny, measured in quantities of parts per billion or trillion, far below the levels of a medical dose."

We have bigger problems than this. A little mood stabilizer in the water might not hurt the general public anyway.

In the big scheme of things, I'm not so sure we do have bigger problems than this. It drives home the idea that we live in a closed ecosystem, and that what we do in our private lives is not strictly our personal business.

Just because the levels are small does not mean anything, as one poster noted. Many factors are involved: how potent the chemicals are, which biological system they alter, and a number of other factors. However, this does not mean that they can be safely ignored. One study in Environmental Health Perspectives found that combining a number of different chemicals, each below their no-observed-effects-level (NOEL) added together to create a very significant effect. Combining Xenoestrogens at Levels below Individual No-Observed-Effect Concentrations Dramatically Enhances Steroid Hormone Action: http://www.ehponline.org/docs/2002/110p917-921rajapakse/abstract.html

And it also depends on the drug. Ethinyl estradiol - the birth control pill - in very small doses (around 6 parts per trillion) was enough to cause all male fish in a lake to become sex-reversed, followed by a complete population collapse. See: Collapse of a fish population after exposure to a synthetic estrogen. http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/104/21/8897.

I guess I have to wonder at what point, exactly, should people get excited? The funny thing is hearing the "experts" claim that the "people" can't interpret the data properly, but I think they have it wrong. I think THEY can't (or don't want to) interpret the data correctly, because the correct interpretation is that we need to radically change our ways. The alternative is to wait a generation, and see how things play out. I really doubt things are going to get better.

Nestle wanted to put a water bottling plant in the next town over from me, it was stopped because the people there wouldn't tolerate a company that said it had done private studies that showed the 168 MILLION gallons of water they would use wouldn't affect the aquifer. Townsfolk everywhere in the countryside should watch out for huge beverage companies like Coke and Nestle coming to your region, they have literally drained stable aquifers dry in 30 years or less in communities in India, Africa, and South America. Northeast North America is thankfully a water-rich place, and it's our responsibility to keep the companies industrially destroying our water from doing any more damage. That goes for energy companies and waste disposal, along with so called light industry. I guess prescription drugs are just the latest addition to pollutants, but with so many thousands of pollutants already present, the only thing you can do is eat, drink, and take action in the healthiest ways you can. Keep learning new ways to purify yourself, stay active and follow your passion. Refuse to submit. Never give up.

I work in beverages myself, I have dealt with many of these water concerns as part of doing business in the healthiest way possible. I make a healthy living drink called Kombucha, which has miraculous detoxifying properties, and a whole lot of love is put into every bottle.

Check it out at www.katalystkombucha.com

Hi Paul, of course most of the beer one consumes is made with tap water. Maybe when it's distilled, it kills everythng in it? Most of the expensive bottled water is just municipal tap water. If you don't have your own well, try distilled water. Of course supply and demand will kick in, and it will go from a buck a gallon to three.

The water can cause sex reverse? ___No wonder I can't parrellel park my car anymore.

Hey KEM, I'm not worried about you until I hear from Evie you were window shopping and commented to her, "...and that dress would sooo match MY eyes." ;-)

I think you might be on to something about drinking beer instead of water. Did you realize the daily beer ration on the Mayflower PER CAPITA was a gallon per day? Or the only reason they landed where they did (originally headed farther south) was after being blown off course they went ashore to brew more, then stayed? That's over ten beers per day, men, women, AND children. No wonder they were lost on the sea; they were stumbling around on deck in a permanent fog. So much for Puritanical attitudes, eh?

Thanks, culicomorpha & Hopeful Brewer (Hopeful Brewer, huh?) for excellent posts & links. One question that arises is what long term effects on DNA structure do these chemicals have & the combinations into substances people have never seen before?

I'm sure Big Pharma doesn't give a rat's ass because the billions are already in their greedy pockets, and the Bush corrupted FDA has been emasculated just like other agencies designed specifically to protect "We The People". When will this madness end?

I am watching from my window as the local condo's grass is now being watered for over an hour. Signs are posted on major arteries to preserve water because Florida is still in something of a drought. MANY condos have what I call "lawn warriors" over-spraying fertilizers, while the farms north of here over use pesticides and herbicides and when it rains you can be SURE this shit gets back into the water table. (It's going to rain today, so these probably computerized watering systems should be fined or rendered illegal.)

Unless Edgar Cayce was wrong about Atlantis, there has NEVER been a time when so many artificial chemicals, POISONS and toxins have been exposed to human, animal and plant biology at the same time. For someone like MARK ABRAMS to make light of this chemical molotof cocktail that's now our drinking water is arrogant to say the least. In homeopathy the idea is that small qualities of a substance exert a great effect. Ever wonder why something as tiny as a mosquito can take a population down? Small (as in amounts) is not guarantee of a lack of toxicity or impact. This fucking with the food chain, this "better living through chemistry" debacle, IS catching up with us. MANY people have cancer, and MANY children are born with autism, and strange hormonal effects are also being demonstrated, not to mention a critical and tragic loss of species (some due to over-development of once natural settings). All of this working competitively and aggressively AGAINST nature, rathern than with Her, can lead to nothing but pain, depravity and illness.

I have no drugs in my home. The human body was made to heal just about any conditon IF it's not being poisoned from within and therein lies the chemical rub.

¿ Clean up Water Treatment for OUR HEALTHO R
Continue Gulf War for OIL ?

I think I'll go for the water, as I cannot drink the oil.

Namaste
… … … … … Mahatma Gandhi … & … ML King … … Inspiration … … … … …
« We must be the change we wish to see in the world »
« There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed »
« We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a community at peace with itself » — MLK

Does this mean that anyone carrying a bottle of tap water can be arrested for possession? Thank goodness they are only downers and heart drugs. Imagine if it were contaminated with the evil weed cannabis? True patriots would have to dry up and die instead of becoming reefer heads. Nancy Reagan would be proud!

The only reason this is news is because people have not been paying attention. This "AP study" is a repeat of countless papers in the literature over the past decade and more. The article fails, though, to mention two major concerns: 1) combinations of many anthropogenic chemicals may have health and environmental effects that are not predicted from standard toxicology studies, which only anaalyze one chemical at a time; and 2) there is accumulating evidence of low dose toxicological effects that are fundamentally different than their effects at high doses. This latter would also be missed in 99% of standard toxicological protocols.

Hmmm, this makes me feel vaguely guilty that I may be partly responsible for adding pharmaceuticals to the drinking water here where I live. I use two medications daily (hopefully I will be off of one in the spring or summer, but that's up to the doctor when I next see him in May), so I wonder if I'm contributing to the problem and I wonder what, if anything, can be done about it?

USAn brings up a few salient points:

1. These very small amonts of pharmecuticals are being found in whole watersheds and even aquifers - the result of their use in livestock.

I don't like the idea of BGH or antibiotics being used in livestock. I see little girls with bodies that look 10 years older, they are already so overdeveloped, and you can imagine how hard it must be for a 8 or 9 year old girl to be sporting the body of a fully developed 18 year old. They aren't mature enough to be able to handle being hit on by older guys who mistake them for someone much older.

And as for antibiotics, well, their use in livestock is partly why we have so many of these super viruses running rampant that are resistant to standard antibiotic treatment. We are ingesting these pharmaceuticals in our food supply and it's affecting our body's ability to fight disease.

2. Only reverse osmosis is effective - and leaves a concentrated waste that goes - where else - back into the river from where it came.

There isn't a better solution? Could one be developed that doesn't discharge a concentrated waste back into the rivers and streams from where it came?

3. Distillation is effective but energy intensive. With typical efficencies, it takes the energy equivalent of a gallon of gasoline to produce 10 gallons of distilled water.

So buying distilled water is doing nothing for our environment, then, since it is so very energy intensive to produce? Hm. If that's the case, then that's good to know.

4. The only solution is to reign in the over-use of prescription drugs.

I agree. We are the most pill popping country in existence. You go to the doctor, there's a pill for everything. What most doctors don't understand is the holistic relationship between mind and body. Often times, there might be some inner stress that is causing us to become ill. What doctors need to do is to interogate the patient about his or her state of mind first. Mine does.

He always starts out asking how my moods have been and we go from there to figure out what's going on and why. He may still prescribe a pill by the time all is said and done, but at least we have a better handle on why I may have become ill and what I can do to reduce the stresses that might have caused it in the first place. Often, it might be a stress induced sleep problem, or something that's been bothering or upsetting me, or maybe sleeping too much because of a touch of depression or seasonal related blues or any number of emotional issues that might be at the root of why I am in his office not feeling well.

5. The concentrations of the pharmecuticals are so small that they may not be a problem anyway.

Well, I sure hope that you're right there. Hearing the cocktail of stuff that might be in the tap water is unnerving for someone like me who's already on medication for which I need to be careful with other drug interactions. My doctor constantly tells me I need to be drinking a lot more water to counteract my chronic attacks of kidney stones, but now.....reading these articles lately on pharmaceuticals in tap water, I'm not so sure I want to! Sure, kidney stones are murderously painful and I would not wish them on my worst enemy, but if it means that the tap water I use daily to take my meds might have pharmaceuticals in it that may interact with the ones I am taking....wow, that's a scary thought, so I hope that you are right that the concentrations are small enough not to be concerned about.

Still, I am concerned. Something does need to be done about it, and soon, if only because of the effects on marine and wildlife.

There is no question that the concentration found are well below therapeutic doses. I doubt there is any immediate health concern in the short term. With treated drinking water, teh common disinfectant is chlorine. When you chlorinate organic compounds it generally makes them more toxic. I think the issue of the pharmaceuticals that when the water is disinfected, probably many of these compounds or their metabolites become chlorinated and much more toxic than the unchlorinated compound. These chlorinated compound may have a pronounced effect on the immune compromised or the very young/old and most importantly, the developing fetus. I do believe there is need to monitor and study these chemicals.

The articles currently out there don't address the illicite drugs which are probably in our water supplies as well (probably no one has thought to test for them). People would freak out if they knew there was coccaine or LSD in their drinking water (even at part-per-trillion levels).