Could someone please help me out here and explain how the prozac is getting into the drinking water? Because to me, it sounds like people take the prozac, then it comes out of their butts, then when their sewage water is "treated," it somehow becomes drinking water...? And the residues of the prozac that came out with the ka-ka are somehow still IN the water? Am I reading this wrong? Someone help!!! I guess all the prozac keeps them from revolting against the fact that their drinking water and treated sewage water are mingling? But if the residue of Prozac is getting into the drinking water, my first question would be "what the hell else is in there?"
LONDON (Reuters) - Traces of the anti-depressant Prozac have been found in Britain's drinking water supply, setting off alarm bells with environmentalists concerned about potentially toxic effects. The Observer newspaper said Sunday that a report by the government's environment watchdog found Prozac was building up in river systems and groundwater used for drinking supplies.The exact quantity of Prozac in the drinking water was unknown, but the Environment Agency's report concluded Prozac could be potentially toxic in the water table.
Experts say that Prozac finds its way into rivers and water systems from treated sewage water, and some believe the drugs could affect reproductive ability.
A spokesman for Britain's Drinking Water Inspectorate said Prozac was likely to be found in a considerably watered down form that was unlikely to pose a health risk.
"It is extremely unlikely that there is a risk, as such drugs are excreted in very low concentrations," the spokesman said. "Advanced treatment processes installed for pesticide removal are effective in removing drug residues."
But environmentalists called for an urgent investigation into the findings.
Norman Baker, environment spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, said it looked "like a case of hidden mass medication upon the unsuspecting public.""It is alarming that there is no monitoring of levels of Prozac and other pharmacy residues in our drinking water," he told the Observer.
The Environment Agency has held a series of meetings with the pharmaceutical industry to discuss any repercussions for human health or the ecosystem, the Observer said.
Prescription of anti-depressants has surged in Britain. In the decade up to 2001, overall prescriptions of antidepressants rose from 9 million to 24 million a year, the paper said.
I must be missing something here.
There has been for a long time now, big concerns with our own water system in that flouride is placed into the country's water supplies. There are many doctors who do not agree that this is the safest thing to do and the "benefits" the government claims such as healthier teeth, some doctors say, just isn't so. See http://www.nofluoride.com/
One theory behind flouride being injected into the water supply is to increase the development of cancer in order to benefit the cancer treatment industry (of course this is just a conspiracy theory - but those of us who are free thinkers question the whole health care industry and its true motives).
Back to reality - it also makes me very curious as to why and how proac is making its way into the UK's water supply. Of all the things that could get into a water supply, doesn't it seem very peculiar that prozac, a so called "happy drug" has managed to wiggle its way to the faucets of consumers? Better yet, they all of a sudden found traces of it after al of these years it has been on the market? And even if it is in such minute amounts, even those amounts can be fatal to folks with an adverse reaction to it - why is it not being removed?
Posted by: Nunya at August 9, 2004 06:03 PMWHAT! This is insane. And I agree with you, Maria, its a completely valid question to ask what the hell else in the water supply?
Posted by: cul at August 9, 2004 08:48 PMJust out of curiosity... What did you think happens to treated sewage? Or for that matter, untreated sewage?
Posted by: AWolf at August 9, 2004 10:17 PMIts broken down by bacteria and chemical treatment, then filtered. Untreated sewage is relatively rare in North America I think...maybe not. I'm going to look into it however.
Posted by: cul at August 9, 2004 10:26 PMhttp://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/S/SewageTreatment.html
Posted by: cul at August 9, 2004 10:28 PMI have a friend who used to work at a small chemical plant that he knows for a fact that would dump their byproducts directly into streams that acted as feeders into lakes that were resivors, so it doesn't have to be sewage that is the cause of these toxins getting into the water supplies. I just find it very hard to beleive that #1 any pharmecutical would dump a direct chemical into a stream and/or sewage line and go unmonitored. When I did a job for the NIEHS they had intermediary floors where the pipes would run from the drains of the scientists labs and they would not drain into sewage at all. #2 again, prozac has been around for quite a long time now - and they are just finding out it is in the water supply?
Again, I just don't buy into whatever spin comes out of this because governments have been dumping certain chemicals into the water supply and telling us it is for our own good for decades now.
Posted by: nunya at August 9, 2004 10:32 PMMy dad used to work for the city of Gold Hill in their water department. I actually did a report on the water treatment cycle when I was in the 6th grade. Gold Hill's water is pulled from the Rogue River, it is then treated with chlorine and other chemicals to kill off bacteria, it is used and then ends up at the sewage treatment plant. The sewage is filtered to seperate the "solids" which are taken to fertilize fields while the liquid is combined with a small amount of chlorine to kill some of the germs, but not too much to kill the algae and fish life in the river. It is then dumped back in the Rogue. Further downstream is the town of Rogue River where they pull out their drinking water and the cycle begins again. It is a little weird. A lot of people don't even think about where the water they drink is coming from and I think that is even more weird.
Posted by: Darcie at August 10, 2004 03:52 PMNormally, within the past 10 - 20 years or so, sewage treatment plants are now down stream from resivoirs. The streams and rivers they dump into eventually flow out into the ocean. It still does not however, mean companies upstream do not dump by products into the water supply.
It still comes back to this whole prozac thing. I am just not buying into that it was an accident or "waste" I really could see amounts being released into the water supply to control moods of people. (I am not afraid to say what many think in the backs of their minds).
Posted by: nunya at August 10, 2004 04:31 PMThis is not a new phenom, Maria. A few years ago, a similar report appeared about about caffeine appearing in the water in the Seattle surrounds. With a Starbuck's on every corner, not too hard to connect the dots.
Everything you take in is eliminated through urine or feces. Since the drugs and the metabolites are all molecules, not organisms, there is nothing to act on or treat, and water treatment plants can't isolate and filter out certain certain impurities on a molecular level. That's why some area have very hard water. Not only that, some molecules, like caffeine, dissolves readily in water. Consult the Physicians Desk Reference for more details.
I understand it's to easy see aura of conspiracy about this, but to be responsible, you also have to look at it as a matter of limited technology and the law of unintended consequences. As long as we're popping pills to treat everything and flushing it into the water supply, this will continue to happen.
Posted by: Sandman at August 13, 2004 09:48 AMThank you all for your informed input. All of your comments genuinely helped me understand this piece of information much better.
Posted by: Maria at August 13, 2004 10:04 AM