|
Was Gen. Ripper right? Drugs detected in drinking water |
|
|
|
Written by Adam Dubbin
|
|
Sunday, 09 March 2008 |
General Jack Ripper, a character from Stanley Kubrick's 1964 film Dr. Strangelove or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, sternly warned his colleague Group Captain Lionel Mandrake about his perceived dangers of drinking fluoridated water. It seems that the fictional character's paranoid concern was not too short sighted, in light of a recent investigation by the Associated Press.
 Pill bottle. Photo by Adam Dubbin /TheSequitur.com
The AP revealed that very small quantities of a wide spectrum of pharmaceutical chemicals, "including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones" were detected in the drinking water of at least 41 million Americans. Drugs were detected in "the drinking water supplies of 24 major metropolitan areas -- from Southern California to Northern New Jersey, from Detroit to Louisville, Ky.," AP reports.
So you may be asking yourself, "How do the drugs get into the water supply?" The answer is very simple: humans consume drugs, which are only partially metabolized then excreted in the urine (and also in perspiration), and then returned into the water cycle via metropolitan sewer services. Believe it or not, even after treatment some of these residual chemicals remain, albeit it in the parts per billion or trillion, well below the doses used clinically.
Perhaps this is just another side-effect of our pill-popping culture. But just because they exist in trace amounts does not mean that they are harmless. There have been some studies that suggest birth control hormones that have found their way into local environments have had adverse affects on fish, reptiles and amphibians. Unfortunately, there is no present data to determine what effects these trace chemicals might have on humans.
Perhaps this is just another side-effect of our pill-popping culture. It boggles the mind that we humans consume these prescription drugs in such quantities that they can be detected in our water, considering standard doses are typically measured in milligrams. Though it isn't quite time yet to adopt Ripper-esque measures – drinking only rainwater or grain alcohol – in protecting our "precious bodily fluids," it should be interesting to see what further studies reveal.
[AP, AP2, WLNS, Xinhua]
Adam Dubbin, managing editor of TheSequitur.com, is a doctoral student in audiology at the University of South Florida. |
Morning Coffee 
.jpg)
