There Are Drugs in Your Water

A recently released article from the Associated Press has drawn a lot of attention, when it revealed that there are small amounts of pharmaceutical drugs in our drinking water. The article says there are many types of drugs and they are present in the water in many places throughout the country. It is not known how long these drugs have been in the water as they are in small amounts and the science that tests for them is somewhat new. It also is not known what effect these drugs will have on people. What we do know is how the drugs got there; they were entered into the sewage systems after the bodies of people who are taking these drugs had disposed of the unused portions. Because many places treat sewage water and return it to the drinking water supply the drugs have entered the water.

I don't know why the testing for this was not available sooner, as it would seem to me that it is important to test the country's drinking water for all kinds of things that shouldn't be there. Tap water is the most universally consumed product, even with the change to drinking bottled water. Tap water is used to make many products which the average person consumes on a daily basis as well. However, I do not believe these drugs pose much of a threat. I would predict that, based on how the drugs are getting into the drinking water, there have probably been trace amounts of these drugs in the water for a long time and so far there have not been any problems that I know of related to that.

Something needs to be done to keep the problem from growing though. If the water is left as it is, the problem could grow because more and more people are using prescription drugs and they will continue to enter the water. It shouldn't be too hard to remove the drugs from the water, we already have filters to keep many other harmful substances out of the water and the same technology should be able to help prevent the drugs from getting through.

In the meantime, there isn't much you can do to keep from consuming these drugs. In-home filters will not be able to catch these drugs either, they only catch other pollutants. Bottled water that comes from tap water most likely has them in it as well, as will most of the food products that use water in their productions. If you are very concerned about this you can buy only fresh foods, which will probably not contain any of these drugs, and you can find a bottled water company that uses water that isn't from the tap.