T: Is for Toxic Thirst!

A vast array of antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans. In Philadelphia they discovered 56 pharmaceuticals or byproducts in treated drinking water and utilities insist their water is safe. But the presence of so many prescription and over the counter drugs is of consequences to human health. Tests were done all around the country and no where was safe. We are a society that is pill orientated as our bodies absorbs, the drugs pass through and down the toilet they go. The water is supposably cleansed at a treatment plants and the cycle is completed as it returns to the consumers. The effects are alarming on human cells as well as the wildlife, so much so that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are voicing their concerns. In Philadelphia, 56 different varieties were found including medicines for pain, infection, high cholesterol, asthma, epilepsy, mental illness and heart. Sixty-three were found in the city's watersheds. In Southern California epileptic and anxiety medications were what 18.5 million people were ingesting. New Jersey saw 850,000 people who weren't sick taking angina and carbamazepine which is a mood-stabilizing drug. Good old San Francisco gave out sex hormones. The federal government doesn't require testing and safety limits for drugs in water have yet to be set. The natural sources of most of the nation's water supply, are also contaminated. The New York state health department and the USGS tested the source of the city's and upstate and found heart medicine, infection fighters, estrogen, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizer and tranquilizers. The officials still insisted that "New York City's drinking water continues to meet all federal and state regulations regarding drinking water quality. The problem isn't confined as it is even permeating aquifers deep underground, the source of 40 percent of the nation's water supply. Perhaps because Americas love affair with taking drugs, accounts for the growing amounts. Over the past five years, the number of U.S. drug prescriptions rose 12 percent to a record 3.7 billion, while nonprescription drug purchases held steady around 3.3 billion. Veterinary drugs also play a role. $5.2 billion was spent over the past five years, according to an analysis of data from the Animal Health Institute. Ask the pharmaceutical industry whether the contamination of water supplies is a problem, and officials will tell you no. But at a conference last summer the director of environmental technology for Merck stated: "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." Laboratory research has found that the medication has affected human embryonic kidney cells, blood cells and 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.
On a positive note Albuquerque, Austin, Texas and Virginia Beach were negative.

But the negatives continue, even users of bottled water and home filtration systems don't necessarily avoid exposure. Bottlers, some of which are simply repackage tap water, do not typically treat or test for pharmaceuticals, according to the industry's main trade group. The same goes for the makers of home filtration systems. And contamination is not confined to the United States. Asia, Australia, Canada and Europe are all infested.

Dr. David Carpenter, director for the Institute for Health and the Environment of the State University of New York at Albany "We know we are being exposed to other people's drugs through our drinking water, and that can't be good." What I con not understand is that they know about this and yet deny the F.A.C.T.S and that boggles my mind.