Drugs In Water Part 01

Water system contamination by drugs is becoming more and more newsworthy. This is partly due to new studies and tests being done. It seems that most public water handling facilities are not built to be able to filtrate pharmaceutical drugs out of our water. Here is a look at drug contamination of water supplies.

Small traces of drugs such as anti-depressants, antibiotics and prescription medicines can now be found in many public water supplies. This is because a significant percentage of drugs that are given to animals and humans pass through their bodies and into the environment. These pharmaceuticals are not removed by filtrating through the earth or by water treatment facilities and end up contaminating our household water.

Traces of drugs have been found in watercourses, rivers and even the drinking water of some cities. Varied surveys have discovered the presence of low levels of pharmaceuticals and pesticides in the tap water of some major U.S. regions. At the moment U.S. federal authorities have not determined any safety limits for drugs in drinking water. Regular testing is not a requirement either. This needs to change.

It is estimated that U.S. drinking water may contain in excess of 2000 toxic chemicals that can cause cancer in regular water users. Add pharmaceutical contamination to that list and you have a potentially harmful mixture of chemicals. It is no wonder that people are getting sicker and sicker despite all the vainglorious attempts of modern medicine.

The drinking water of millions of Americans may be polluted with up to 50 pharmaceuticals at one time. Loads of drugs are being ditched into sewer water. The presence of pharmaceuticals in the public water supply is a reality. It seems that we as a society are using so much medicinal drugs that they are being recycled back into our tap water.

The basic origins of pharmaceutical pollution of drinking water are the throwing away of unused drugs, human and livestock waste matter and industrial runoff.

Some people have pointed out that fish and other wildlife living in or near contaminated rivers are showing negative side effects after exposure to residual compounds in the water. Our dependence upon modern pharmaceutical medicine instead of natural medicine provided by the earth is polluting our environment and hurting our fellow animals. Just about every prescription drug is a man-made organic chemical. We should start to seriously question the sustainability of the pharmaceutical as well as chemical industry. We should also start to question our own use of pharmaceutical drugs and household chemicals in our daily lives.

So does reverse osmosis remove pharmaceuticals from water? Unfortunately not. The synthetic organic chemical compounds are small enough to pass through most filter membranes. You need to use a carbon filter to remove most of the pharmaceuticals in water supply systems.