Drugs in tap water revisited

August 21, 1:15 PMDenver Health ExaminerDonna Feldman

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What's in your water (www.ksl.com)

After the Associated Press published the results of a 5-month investigation of drugs in public water supplies, Congress rounded up the usual suspects for hearings, and the topic faded away.

Since then, increasing green consciousness (all those shipped and discarded plastic bottles), combined with concern about plastic in bottled water persuaded more people to switch to tap water. So what’s in that tap water?

The short answer - you can't always know.

The EPA sets standards for certain known contaminants, including microbes, heavy metals, certain industrial chemicals and some agricultural chemicals. The US government does not require testing for pharmaceuticals. Until recently, it wasn’t considered important. But with hundreds of millions of Americans taking numerous prescription drugs every day, maybe it’s time to reconsider.

The AP investigation turned up trace amounts of dozens of pharmaceuticals, including antibiotics, mood drugs and sex hormones. These, and others, get into our water supply when they’re flushed down the toilet, either excreted by users or deliberately flushed as a means of disposal. The American Water Works Association, based in Denver, dismisses the trace amounts, such as those found by the AP tests, as unlikely to cause harm. However, those trace amounts are capable of causing documented birth defects in wildlife.

 A list of the top 50 prescription drugs, courtesy of my medical insurance provider, includes the following:

• 14 blood pressure drugs
• 10 pain medications, including several from the oxycodone family
• 7 drugs for depression and anxiety
• 6 antibiotics
• 3 statins - the major ones advertised on TV every 5 minutes
• various other medications for diabetes, seizures, allergies, sleep disorders and stomach acid.

If metabolites of all of these and more are flushed into our water systems everyday, how can experts claim there is no danger? Because there’s no research one way or the other. The government’s approach is “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”.

What can you do? Home water purification won’t necessarily help either. Neither P& G’s PUR filters nor Brita filters make claims about pharmaceutical removal. Both can filter chlorine, agricultural contaminants, heavy metals like lead, sediment, microbial cysts and some industrial pollutants.

Distillation removes everything from water, including possibly the taste, but home distillation or reverse-osmosis systems can be expensive. Spring water delivery is another option, although also not inexpensive. Jeremy Martin of Eldorado Artesian Springs, Inc. says calls to the company increase when water quality is in the news. Eldorado water is tested periodically, and contaminants are rarely detectable.

So until the government decides to get serious about detecting and removing pharmaceuticals from public water supplies, you can’t be sure what’s in your morning coffee or the water bottle you took on your bike ride.