| Drugs
In Drinking Water, A Shocking Discovery!
As
if we didn't have enough worries about the quality of our drinking
water, we now find that caffeine, nicotine, antibiotics and many
prescription drugs are being detected in our public and private
water systems.
It's
not a very pleasant thought, but on the average... about 10% of
the water we drink has been used before.
The
same amount of water that exists on this planet today... existed
millions of years ago... to the drop! There is no such thing as
new water. Our planet continuously recycles and re-uses this finite
supply of water. Only recently have we learned how fragile and finite
our water resources really are. We are finding traces of compounds
in our water that no one ever thought to look for before.
In
1999, a 17-year-old West Virginia high school student, Ashley Mulroy,
read a report in a science magazine describing how European scientists
had recently discovered that drugs of all kinds, including antibiotics,
were flowing in rivers, streams, ground water and even in tap water
and decided to embark on a science project of her own. Over a ten
week period, Ashley and her mother drove for miles along the Ohio
River taking samples of the water from different sites. She then
returned to her hometown and had the samples tested for three common
antibiotics: penicillin, tetracycline and vancomycin... to her surprise
she found traces of all three in the samples she had taken. Ashley
then sampled tap water in three near by towns. All three, including
water from the drinking fountain at her school, were contaminated
with the antibiotics in question. Ashley was awarded several science
project awards and more importantly opened the eyes of many U.S.
scientists.
Researchers
from the U.S. E.P.A. and the National Geological Survey have now
found traces of antibiotics, birth control drugs, anti-depressants
and even caffeine in many water samples taken across the country.
Large animal farming operations and waste water treatment plants
release billions of gallons of contaminated waste water into our
environment every day. A large percentage of the drugs that are
given to humans and animals pass through the body and wind up in
this recycled waste water.
USA
Today, in a 11/8/00 news release, stated that "experts fear that
even low levels of antibiotics fouling the nations water supply
may help create super-bugs: micro organisms that have evolved to
survive an antibiotic's lethal assault." And that these super-bugs
may be causing 'tens of thousands' of deaths each year in the U.S.A,
according to Abigail Salyers, an expert on antibiotic resistance
at the University of Illinois.
Christian
Daughton, a Chief of Environmental Chemistry for the E.P.A., warns
that 'Water pollution by drugs is a newly emerging issue.'
Our
public water treatment plants are not designed to remove drugs and
other synthetic chemicals from our water. Without waiting for the
final verdict on the actual effects of drinking a mixture of drugs
and other chemicals... we can assume that they will be negative.
The only question is... how negative and why wait?
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