Top 11 compounds in US drinking water
Researchers at the Southern Nevada Water Authority analyzed tap water from 19 US water utilities. New Scientist shares the list of the top 11 detected compounds, fortunately all of which were "found at extremely low concentrations." According the Environmental Protection Agency, there's no cause for alarm but there could be risk "especially for the fetus and those with severely compromised health." Here are the top 5:
• Atenolol, a beta-blocker used to treat cardiovascular diseaseTop 11 compounds in US drinking water
• Atrazine, an organic herbicide banned in the European Union, but still used in the US, which has been implicated in the decline of fish stocks and in changes in animal behaviour
• Carbamazepine, a mood-stabilising drug used to treat bipolar disorder, amongst other things
• Estrone, an oestrogen hormone secreted by the ovaries and blamed for causing gender-bending changes in fish
• Gemfibrozil, an anti-cholesterol drug
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Damn. I was hoping to see Hydrogen and Oxygen make the list.
I think 1000 years from now historians will puzzle over our behavior and chalk it up to Carbamazepine (etc.) in the water supply in much the same manner we look back at the debauchery of Rome and simply say "lead pipes."
Oooh Oooh, US healthcare is too expensive for most of the population to afford.
Oooh no we're being given free medicine.
Make up your minds guys.
Gemfibrozil isn't real! i can see the pixels!
We (at least I) already have filters on our water taps for incoming water, looks like we'll be needing them on our outgoing, as well.
Cool - I used to tak Carbamazepine as an anti-seizure medication.
Tap water has already been through some filtering, at least in most places. Does something like a Brita filter actually get rid of these compounds?
Every year, nursing homes flush tons of medications down the loo because we can't come up with some system to redistribute the meds:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/11/eveningnews/main4010772.shtml
Guess I should stick with beer.
Oh cool, I can stop paying for my atenolol Rx now.
I working in an assisted living facility and whenever a prescription changes we have to flush the old meds, sometimes a three month supply because of a change in dosage. We are not allowed to dispose of the medication in any other manner. Most people don't think about it after they are flushed out, they don't understand that our filtration systems aren't made to filter out pharmaceuticals. They are just cycled back into our drinking water.
How long before they have a profound affect on the populations health?
The good side of this story is that we know about this problem before it becomes a problem. That is, our capability to detect these non-biodegradable compounds at parts per trillion, gives us time to figure out a way to treat our wastewater before it reaches levels that are a human or environmental concern.
To put this in perspective, the starting dosage for Gemfibrozil is 600mg/day. At 8.9 parts per trillion (real number from Lake Michigan intake area), you'd receive a dose of 0.0000000036g from drinking 2 gallons of water a day. Not so much. In fact, so little that it is inconsequential.
Like other non-biodegradable compounds, the problem isn't today's environmental exposure...it is that the chemicals don't go away and the levels continue to increase...unless we do something.
If you look at the industry and academic literature on wastewater treatment, this is the hot topic and solutions are on their way.
This problem will get solved and I don't worry myself at all.
I think most disturbing are the 2 antibiotics on the list. No better way to breed resistance.
@Doug Nelson, I don't know either way, but these compounds cross the blood-brain barrier, so I wonder about your filters.
@Gauchoamigo, Many breweries use local tap water, taking pride in the local ion characteristics.
@Amdurick, you only don't worry yourself because you are blissfully sedated by pharms in your local water supply.
I *thought* I tasted something.
Isn't it odd that the top eleven crop up in alphabetical order?
So.. in 100 years locals will be slimmer, free of cardiovascular disease-free, bipolar disorder, in very good mood, if a bit gender-bent?
@5 - The presence of these compounds in the water supply does not come from 'flushing tons of meds down the loo', but from the failure of the human body to metabolize these compounds completely. The remaining un-metabolized portion of the 'dosage' is then excreted or eliminated and then leaches into ground water from septic and sewer systems.
At least we'll all die happy and healthy.
Who says drugs aren't affordable in the US?
Yeah it's a good thing they were only found in minute concentrations...
but a pity that you only need minute concentrations of hormones (estrogen), or endocrine disrupters to affect growth.
Hey, isn't it strange how kids have been maturing earlier and earlier?
@13 ...and susceptible to mutant urinary tract infections! (trimethoprim and sulfamethoxazole combine to make Bactrim DS, one of the most commonly-used antibiotics for treating UTIs)
Estrogen:
Maybe that explains why high school girls (and college) look so much more mature (and hotter) today than they did 10 years ago... Or maybe I've just become an older perv...
But seriously, something just seems wrong about seeing a kid who is 15-16 and thinking I didn't look like that until 18-20...
FTFA:
"We as a species have decided to live a modern life, with pharmaceuticals, plastics, transportation - therefore we must accept that there will be a certain degree of contamination."
Huh? wait, What?
I've got to remember to get to the species meetings more often,because I'm pretty sure I would have voted against our drinking water having the qualities of a urine sample....
I drink tap water treated with ro and uv but I am not under any illusions that it removes all the drugs. Our county water supply just got fluoridated (whee!)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexafluorosilicic_acid
and they appear to be moving forward on the "Toilet to tap" program so I'm sure we'll have even more delicious meds in our food+drink in the future.
#8-Amuderick- I hope you are right. I like your optimism.
Well, it's certainly a good thing I'm not a fetus or have seriously compromised health!
That explains the moobs, why my BP is 100/60 and why I've never had a seizure. I guess the Naproxen cancels out the effects of my sulfa allergy. The tranquilizer is definitely not working.
The connection between estrogen in the water and lower average age for the onset of puberty is specious. Or, at least, there's a gorilla in the room that no one mentions: puberty onset has been shown to be triggered by reaching a certain weight. So, it really has to do with childhood obesity rates, which are all about diet and exercise.
Which makes a lot more sense to me than minute concentrations of stray organics in water and milk. (For the record, I do buy hormone free dairy products--but mostly for reasons surrounding animal treatment and the positive effect of good care of animals has on food quality.)
#18 Falcon Seven,
The infamous human body excretes drugs unchanged on occasion. You're spending precious money on pharmaceuticals, and your body just flushes it down the toilet. It's such an unfair dictator, leaving the bulk of the work to the liver and kidneys.
It's not a failure of the body to metabolize the drugs. The body wants to rid itself of unfamiliar chemicals. Elimination is the goal, so how it occurs doesn't matter. Don't fault the body for poorly designed drugs.
Luckily, the eastrogen in the rain is a natural contraceptive.
Wait, no.
Folks, I work for a water utility. Let me say right out loud that I don't have a clue if this is a significant issue or not. I'll leave that for scientists to determine and for public policy wonks to set guidelines for us to follow.
However, I need to point out that water filtration technology is mostly configured to eliminate biological and inorganic contaminants, not drugs. We add non-toxic coagulants to the water so that we can more effectively filter out bacteria and small particulates. We use ultraviolet disinfection and small amounts of residual chlorination to keep the water safe from viruses and other biological contaminants.
But we don't do much to remove the drugs in the water. Do understand that UV disinfection and chlorination will destroy many drugs in the water. And Reverse Osmosis (if you don't mind the energy bill) is even better. But we can't remove EVERYTHING. If it were mandatory, we could make molecularly pure water. You would faint when you saw the price tag, however.
So we have a fundamental question that needs to be answered: What are you willing to pay for and what goals should we shoot for?
There are no easy answers here.
No Jack Daniel's?
I guess there is something to homeopathy after all.
This is a very nice student excercise that puts some perspective on 'the dose makes the poison'
http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/projects/cases/baffled/baffled_notes.html
Take the case on bisphenol-A in polycarbonate bottles. Does the politics match the science? And, by science, I mean truth.
If a baby drinks a bottle of formula from a phthalate containing bottle, analysis shows that in the worst case scenario, 5 parts per billion on bisphenol-A is consumed. This is from "Summary of research on polycarbonate plastics May 13, 1999 Migration Research"
"So what does this mean? Is 5 ppb significant? First of all, the total amount of bisphenol-A consumed per kg body weight, per day must be calculated. The FDA normally uses the figure of 750 g of formula per day for a 4 kg infant (188 g formula/kg/d). Thus, the amount of bisphenol-A consumed would be 5 ng bisphenol-A/g formula (i.e., 5 ppb) x 188 g formula/kg/d = 0.94 μg/kg/d or about 1 μg/kg/d.
Is 1 μg/kg/d significant? Now, we get into the issue of toxicity and the concepts of LOAEL and safe doses. The LOAEL (lowest observed adverse effect limit) must be measured experimentally via animal studies. The students may be told that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) LOAEL value for bisphenol-A is 50 mg/kg/d. Thus, it may be presumed that consumption of this LOAEL amount of bisphenol-A is "borderline" in terms of estrogen-mimicking effects. In mice, such effects may include disruption of mammary function, and decreased size of the testes and decreased sperm count in male offspring of pregnant mice exposed to bisphenol-A. The reference or safe dose is usually defined as 1/1000 of the LOAEL, or 50 μg/kg/d. The actual dose (~1 μg/kg/d), based on experimentally measured concentrations of bisphenol-A, is about 50 times lower than the "safe" dose, according to the EPA values for the LOAEL and safe dose. "
Nothing in the world is 'pure' and it never has been. There is risk is everything. AB3A is dead on with this point.
But, if you prefer, ignore science and all of the uncomfortable reality that goes with it. Support banning, restricting, and cleaning up things that don't actually cause measurable harm. After all, why take the chance?
I've seen many articles that say there are drugs in the drinking water but none of them ever, ever cite HOW MUCH.
"Oh, not much. Not enough to harm you, trust us. We just can't tell you how much, ever."
Why must you dispose of unwanted medicine down a toilet anyway? Here (UK) you can take unwanted medicines to any pharmacy for disposal (presumably, they are incinerated, which was what was done with waste when I worked at a drug factory).
I personally think it's a communist plot to destroy our human essence.
I'm sure things were much better back in the days where water only contained nice natural organisms like polio and cholera.
Nice work BoingBoing! Nothing like a touch of irresponsible journalism to frighten the masses into even greater consumption of eco-pocalyptic bottled water. Fear and panic FTW!
http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/water/bottled
http://www.storyofstuff.com/
what? you'd rather nothing be said?
there's a special ciircle of hell for those that spam with (putative) children. It's REALLY dry.
This is obviously a plot by some shadow government to turn all Americans into mentally balanced women with great blood pressure levels.
WTF