Are you drinking your neighbors’ prescription drugs?
At least 24 major metropolitan areas in the United States have low-level concentrations of pharmaceuticals in their drinking water supplies, found a 2008 Associated Press investigation.
46 million Americans, at least, are consuming water contaminated with prescription and over-the-counter medications. As the investigation continues these numbers are growing. The federal government does not regulate prescription drugs in drinking water. It doesn’t require testing and has not set safety limits for drugs in water.
- Are you drinking nicotine byproducts, acetaminophen, antibiotics and sex hormones in your water? Your pet’s medicines?
When we take prescription and over-the-counter medications we excrete portions of them and their byproducts in our urine. This is primarily how pharmaceuticals get into our drinking water.
- Waste-water treatment plants and septic systems are not designed to remove pharmaceuticals from our water supplies. Municipal water systems discharge their treated water, with drug residues, back into their drinking water supplies or the surface-water sources they drew it from.
2/3 of cities get their water from surface-water sources like lakes, rivers and streams. Lake Michigan provides drinking water to more than 40 million people, including the cities of Chicago and Milwaukee.
- Recent tests of Lake Michigan water found it contaminated with low levels of pharmaceutical compounds and numerous other chemicals.
- Pharmaceuticals in our surface waters are harming wildlife, from earthworms and zooplankton, to fish and birds. For example, endocrine-disrupting compounds from human and animal drugs are altering the reproductive organs of fish.
Ground-water sources provide almost 40 percent of the nation’s water supply, for public water systems and private wells. Tests have revealed they can also be contaminated with drugs and personal-care products.
- Dispose of unused medications properly. Do not flush them!
Know The Water You Drink Ask to see the test results for your drinking water, tap or bottled. It’s the only way to know what you’re drinking.