PRESCRIPTION FOR TROUBLE: Researchers have identified traces of pharmaceutical drugs--including antibiotics, hormones, contraceptives and steroids--in the drinking water supplies of some 40 million Americans.
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Dear EarthTalk: Pharmaceuticals were in the news again recently, how they are polluting water and raising a host of health issues because we dispose of them both unused and used through bodily waste elimination. What can be done?—Lucy Abbot, Macon, Ga.
Pharmaceutical drug contamination in our groundwater, rivers, lakes, estuaries and bays is a growing problem. Millions of us are flushing unused medications down the toilet and discharging them in our body waste—even though sewage treatment plants and septic systems were never designed to deal with such contaminants. Additional discharges by healthcare facilities exacerbate the problem. As a result, researchers have identified traces of pharmaceutical drugs in the drinking water supplies of some 40 million Americans.
A nationwide study conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey in 1999 and 2000 found low levels of pharmaceuticals—including antibiotics, hormones, contraceptives and steroids—in 80 percent of the rivers and streams sampled. According to Citizens Campaign for the Environment (CCE), the effects of constant, low-level exposure of pharmaceuticals on ecosystems and humans are uncertain, though “possible health concerns include hormone disruption, antibiotic resistance and synergistic effects.” And antidepressants, says CCE, can “alter the behavior and reproductive functions of fish and mollusks.”
CCE cites a recent Stony Brook University study showing that some fish species in New York’s Jamaica Bay are experiencing “feminization”—the ratio of female to male winter flounder was 10 to one in the studied area—likely a result of flushed pharmaceuticals that can act as “hormone mimics” and cause such effects. New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation concurs, citing a number of other studies underscoring the impacts on aquatic life. What irks CCE about the problem is that almost all known sources of drugs in the environment first pass through wastewater treatment plants where they could be filtered out, but these facilities are not required to be equipped with pharmaceutical filter devices.
In light of the problem, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) in 2007 established its first set of guidelines for how consumers should dispose of prescription drugs. First and foremost, consumers should follow any specific disposal instructions on a drug’s label or the patient information that accompanies the medication—and shouldn’t flush the drugs down the toilet. If there are no disposal instructions, the FDA recommends finding out from your municipality if any take-back programs are in place. Also, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration sponsors National Prescription Drug Take Back Days across the country at various sites a few times a year.
“If no instructions are given on the drug label and no take-back program is available in your area, throw the drugs in the household trash, but first take them out of their original containers and mix them with an undesirable substance, such as used coffee grounds or kitty litter,” says the FDA. This will make them less appealing to children, pets or people who may intentionally go through your trash, says the agency, which adds that a final step is to put the medication into a sealed bag or other container to prevent leaks.
CONTACTS: CCE, www.citizenscampaign.org; National Prescription Drug Take Back Days, www.nationaltakebackday.com; FDA’s “How to Dispose of Unused Medicines,” www.fda.gov/downloads/Drugs/ResourcesForYou/Consumers/BuyingUsingMedicineSafely/UnderstandingOver-the-CounterMedicines/ucm107163.pdf.
EarthTalk® is written and edited by Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss and is a registered trademark of E - The Environmental Magazine (www.emagazine.com). Send questions to: earthtalk@emagazine.com. Subscribe: www.emagazine.com/subscribe. Free Trial Issue: www.emagazine.com/trial.
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7 Comments
Add CommentA few problems...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFirst: "May" There is no question regarding the contamination of groundwater by pharmaceutical substances. The use of the indeterminate 'may' is deceiving at best.
"[T]he effects of constant, low-level exposure ... are uncertain..." Well, long-term, certainly they're uncertain, but now - when it matters - the effect is well known. A few hundred thousand years of natural evolution is being disrupted by the addition of these artificial substances, to people who are not clinically prescribed. There is no literature that I know of that proposes a regimen of potluck drug cocktails as an advantageous path in the evolutionary process.
"...[A] final step is to put the medication into a sealed bag or other container to prevent leaks." Yeah... good luck with that.
Hormones in the water is especially concerning as the living organism is designed to react strongly to vanishingly small amounts of them.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe problem of traces of medication in sewage treating plants is quite well known. The use of cocain , for example is easy detectable. The use of Ultraviolet light helps but a little. Really effectiv is a treatment with beta rays that are strong enough to breack down every molecule. A college of mine, working at the atomic institut of the University of Vienna was sent all over the world to speak at conferences. The problem is the fact that "atomic rays" are used. It is high time that the magistrate of towns are informed about the use of high energy electrons for the treatment of sewage. Dr.Kamlander@aon.at
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTHE DOSE IS THE POISON.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLima beans are “contaminated” naturally with cyanide, for instance, but you’d have to eat SEVEN FREAKING POUNDS of lima beans at a single sitting in order to feel any deleterious effects from cyanide poisoning. You would of course be dead well in advance of those effects simply from the attempt of consuming seven pounds of lima beans. Bon Apetit.
The suggestion that flushed pharmaceuticals, making their way into the metabolisms of flounder (and ONLY flounder???), is the cause of an apparent aberrational distribution of gender among that species is a laughable premise. No cause is noted, only an assumed association based on the unsubstantiated evidence of one or two fish studies.
There is no evidence presented that the groundwater “contamination” by prescription drugs is affecting any population anywhere at any time. Like cyanide in lima beans, these “contaminants” are measurable, and minimum thresholds of risk can be established. It can be scientifically demonstrated whether or not there is an acceptable level of contaminants beyond which people (not fish) become adversely affected by them. This has not been done. Panic ensues.
The research shows only that these contaminants exist and that’s as far as it needs to go, apparently. Statistics such as “the drinking water of 60 million Americans MAY be contaminated are utterly meaningless and useless, except to engender fear in the reader.
I am betting that if these studies are ever developed, it will turn out that there is indeed a causal relationship between pharmaceuticals in the groundwater and our health. One will have to drink twenty gallons a day for ten years before the effects can be even slightly measurable, but the “risk” is there. Feeling thirsty?
"[T]he effects of constant, low-level exposure ... are uncertain..." Well, long-term, certainly they're uncertain, but now - when it matters - the effect is well known. A few hundred thousand years of natural evolution is being disrupted by the addition of these artificial substances, to people who are not clinically prescribed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGaul's post is a perfect example of the illogic of the article. The effects, long term or short term, of trace quantities of pharmaceuticals in the water supply have not yet been scientifically established, but because the word "Contamination" is used a few times, then it must follow that "a few hundred thousand years of "natural" evolution is being disrupted.
Chicken Little lives.....
It seems that the effect of discarded drugs is already noticeable in freswater fish. Some countries have already implemented a non used or surplus drugs collection system based in the pharmacy offices that sell drugs. It an easy and practical approach to the problem.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"It seems that the effect of discarded drugs is already noticeable in freswater fish".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhich fish? what study conclusively demonstrates an effect? There can be no "practical approach to the problem" unless it first can be determined that there IS a problem.