Medications in Drinking Water

Ok, so we are hearing everywhere these days about prescription medicines in the drinking water of many states and localities. Several people have asked me about this in recent days. They want to know what Environmental Scientists and Toxicologists think about these recent reports. I probably should have written about this several days ago, but here is my belated response:

“What was in this report that we didnt already know?” 

I dont mean to sound flippant about this, but there was nothing in the report that we didnt already know with certainty. This is hardly the first study of its kind. That is not to say that it isnt important. In fact one of my proposed research projects 2 years ago was on pharmaceuticals in surface waterways.

Let me ask you all the same question that I ask my students. Where do you think all of the pharmaceuticals in our water come from?……mostly they are flushed down the toilet. Americans consume more medicines than you can even imagine. When we urinate we release metabolized forms of those medicines.

Lets take caffeine for example. Caffeine is a drug right? When you drink coffee or Coca Cola your body uses some of the caffeine. Some of it is changed by your body into other chemical species. The rest of it leaves in your urine in a similar state. What do you think happens to the caffeine? It is flushed out and eventually reaches groundwater, lakes, rivers, oceans, etc.

The same thing happens for Ritalin, Oral Birth Control Pills, Steroids, Cough Medicine, and thousands and thousands of other drugs. Our society (sorry I will soap box for one sentence) is addicted to drugs of all kinds.  What do you expect will happen?

One other thing to think about…….there are far more new compounds invented/produced everyday then we can effectively study. This is a major problem because the unknowns are growing much faster than we can characterize.

This is a problem that I think will continue with us into the future.