Prescription Drugs in the Water Supply – Flushed Away!
The planet may still be paying for the cold you had last winter. If it was a bad one, you probably took medicine. Maybe you rinsed the little dosing cup in the sink every time you used it. Maybe you finished the bottle and threw it in the trash. What you surely did several times a day was go to the bathroom — perhaps more than usual if you were taking care to drink plenty of liquids — and some of that medicine passed straight through you. What all this means is that while you were taking your cold medicine, so was your local water supply.
The planet is also paying for your dad’s hypertension, your aunt’s high cholesterol and your colleague’s throat infection, all of which were treated with drugs whose chemical residue then leaked into sewers or was leached into landfills and water tables. All told, there are about 3,000 prescription pharmaceuticals in use in the U.S. and thousands more over-the-counter drugs, not to mention creams and ointments we smear on and then shower off. “Between cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and other sources,” says John Spatz, commissioner of Chicago’s department of water management, “there are 80,000 potential combinations of chemicals.” It’s impossible to keep our drinking supply safe from a gusher like that.
