Badwater

The Associated Press has found traces of many prescription and over-the-counter drugs in the water supplies of 28 major metropolitan areas. The investigative team

reviewed hundreds of scientific reports, analyzed federal drinking water databases, visited environmental study sites and treatment plants and interviewed more than 230 officials, academics and scientists. They also surveyed the nation’s 50 largest cities and a dozen other major water providers, as well as smaller community water providers in all 50 states.

What I find most disturbing is that no one has any idea about the long-term effects of these low-level, lifetime exposures. All of these drugs have been approved for use after safety testing, but no study lasts for a lifetime. And, of course, drugs are never tested on vulnerable populations like children, pregnant women and the elderly.

More clear is the evidence that environmental exposure to pharmaceuticals has had an effect on wildlife, especially fish and amphibians.

For several decades, federal environmental officials and nonprofit watchdog environmental groups have focused on regulated contaminants — pesticides, lead, PCBs — which are present in higher concentrations and clearly pose a health risk.
However, some experts say medications may pose a unique danger because, unlike most pollutants, they were crafted to act on the human body.
“These are chemicals that are designed to have very specific effects at very low concentrations. That’s what pharmaceuticals do. So when they get out to the environment, it should not be a shock to people that they have effects,” says zoologist John Sumpter at Brunel University in London, who has studied trace hormones, heart medicine and other drugs.

This is clearly a long-term problem that requires a long-term solution, rather than immediate panic. But unintended consequences are the rule rather than the exception when people change complex natural systems.