Drugs in our drinking water

Over the past five years, the number of U.S. prescriptions rose 12 percent to a record 3.7 billion. Nonprescription drug purchases held steady around 3.3 billion, according to IMS Health and The Nielsen Co.

In tiny, but pervasive, amounts, these drugs wind up in our drinking water, heightening worries among scientists about long-term health consequences.

"People think that if they take a medication, their body absorbs it and it disappears, but of course that's not the case," said Environmental Protection Agency scientist Christian Daughton, one of the first to draw attention to the issue of pharmaceuticals in water in the United States. Traces of the drug are flushed into treatment plants -- and eventually back into the drinking water supply.

In a five-month investigation, the Associated Press found drugs had been detected in the drinking water of 24 major metropolitan areas. Chicago water -- which is piped to many suburbs -- hadn't been tested, and the federal government doesn't require it.

Some drugs, including widely used cholesterol fighters, tranquilizers and anti-epileptic medications, resist modern drinking water and wastewater treatment processes. Plus, the EPA says there are no sewage treatment systems specifically engineered to remove pharmaceuticals.One technology, reverse osmosis, removes virtually all pharmaceutical contaminants but is very expensive for large-scale use and leaves several gallons of polluted water for every one that is made drinkable.Another issue: There's evidence that adding chlorine, a common process in conventional drinking water treatment plants, makes some pharmaceuticals more toxic.Human waste isn't the only source of contamination.Cattle, for example, are given ear implants that provide a slow release of trenbolone, an anabolic steroid used by some bodybuilders, which causes cattle to bulk up. But not all the trenbolone circulating in a steer is metabolized. A German study showed 10 percent of the steroid passed right through the animals.Water sampled downstream of a Nebraska feedlot had steroid levels four times as high as the water taken upstream. Male fathead minnows living in that downstream area had low testosterone levels and small heads.Ask the pharmaceutical industry whether the contamination of water supplies is a problem, and officials will tell you no."Based on what we now know, I would say we find there's little or no risk from pharmaceuticals in the environment to human health," said microbiologist Thomas White, a consultant for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.But at a conference last summer, Mary Buzby -- director of environmental technology for drug maker Merck Co. Inc. -- said: "There's no doubt about it, pharmaceuticals are being detected in the environment and there is genuine concern that these compounds, in the small concentrations that they're at, could be causing impacts to human health or to aquatic organisms."Recent laboratory research has found that small amounts of medication have affected human embryonic kidney cells, human blood cells and human breast cancer cells.The cancer cells proliferated too quickly; the kidney cells grew too slowly; and the blood cells showed biological activity associated with inflammation.Also, pharmaceuticals in waterways are damaging wildlife across the nation and around the globe, research shows.Notably, male fish are being feminized, creating egg yolk proteins, a process usually restricted to females.Pharmaceuticals also are affecting sentinel species at the foundation of the pyramid of life -- such as earth worms in the wild and zooplankton in the laboratory, studies show.Some scientists stress that the research is extremely limited, and there are too many unknowns. They say, though, that the documented health problems in wildlife are disconcerting."It brings a question to people's minds that if the fish were affected #8230; might there be a potential problem for humans?" EPA research biologist Vickie Wilson said."It could be that the fish are just exquisitely sensitive because of their physiology or something. We haven't gotten far enough along," she said.With limited research funds, said Shane Snyder, research and development project manager at the Southern Nevada Water Authority, a greater emphasis should be put on studying the effects of drugs in water."I think it's a shame that so much money is going into monitoring to figure out if these things are out there, and so little is being spent on human health," said Snyder."They need to just accept that these things are everywhere -- every chemical and pharmaceutical could be there. It's time for the EPA to step up to the plate and make a statement about the need to study effects, both human and environmental."To the degree that the EPA is focused on the issue, it appears to be looking at detection.Benjamin H. Grumbles, assistant administrator for water at the EPA, acknowledged that just late last year the agency developed three new methods to "detect and quantify pharmaceuticals" in wastewater. "We realize that we have a limited amount of data on the concentrations," he said. "We're going to be able to learn a lot more."While Grumbles said the EPA had analyzed 287 pharmaceuticals for possible inclusion on a draft list of candidates for regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act, he said only one, nitroglycerin, was on the list. Nitroglycerin can be used as a drug for heart problems, but the key reason it's being considered is its widespread use in making explosives.So much is unknown.Many independent scientists are skeptical that trace concentrations will ultimately prove to be harmful to humans. Confidence about human safety is based largely on studies that poison lab animals with much higher amounts.There's growing concern in the scientific community, meanwhile, that certain drugs -- or combinations of drugs -- may harm humans over decades because water, unlike most specific foods, is consumed in sizable amounts every day.Our bodies may shrug off a relatively big one-time dose, yet suffer from a smaller amount delivered continuously over a half century, perhaps subtly stirring allergies or nerve damage.Pregnant women, the elderly and the very ill might be more sensitive.Many concerns about chronic low-level exposure focus on certain drug classes: chemotherapy that can act as a powerful poison; hormones that can hamper reproduction or development; medicines for depression and epilepsy that can damage the brain or change behavior; antibiotics that can allow human germs to mutate into more dangerous forms; pain relievers and blood-pressure diuretics.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.And while drugs are tested to be safe for humans, the time frame is usually over a matter of months, not a lifetime.Pharmaceuticals also can produce side effects and interact with other drugs at normal medical doses. That's why -- aside from therapeutic doses of fluoride injected into potable water supplies -- pharmaceuticals are prescribed to people who need them, not delivered to everyone in their drinking water."We know we are being exposed to other people's drugs through our drinking water, and that can't be good," says Dr. David Carpenter, who directs the Institute for Health and the Environment of the State University of New York at Albany.