Back in February of this year, one of my blogposts focused on the fact that the UK Health Secretary was making noises about expanding water fluoridation, despite the fact that the evidence suggests that this practice is far from ‘evidence-based’. The title of this post was: UK health minister calls for mass medication through water supply which referred to the claim that fluoride is, essentially, a medication (i.e. one that can cut dental disease). However, reading today’s British Medical Journal made me realise that fluoride is not the only drug that might be being pumped into homes in the UK and elsewhere [1].
In the piece in question, freelance journalist Geoff Watts details reports of pharmaceutical drugs ending up in the water supply. He points out that after ingestion, drug residues can end up passing from our bodies into the sewage system via our urine. Sometimes individuals will ‘cut out the middle man’ by simply flushing medication down the toilet. Drugs that make their way into the sewage system may contaminate nature. However, we are not immune to the effects of such contamination because the purification of water before it appears in our kitchen taps may fail to rid it of all its pharmaceutical pollutants.
Mr Watts starts by citing an American press report from March of this year which claimed that that a wide spectrum of medications (including antibiotics, anticonvulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones) had been found in the drinking water supplies of more than 40 million Americans. In a subsequent senatorial hearing on the issue, the US Environmental Protection Agency was lambasted for its alleged complacency.
There have been problems on the other side of the pond too. For example. a researcher at the Technical University of Berlin’s Institute of Food Chemistry found drugs in samples of Berlin tap water. Italian researchers have found chemical and medicinal products in the drinking water from the Lake Maggiore area. Mr Watts also points to the work of a Hawii-based researcher who, last year, reviewed all the reports she could find regarding drug residues in water systems in Europe and America. Apparently, between them the reports identified 10 drugs in drinking water. As Mr Watts says: The amounts were low, but the findings undermine any comfortable assumption that water treatment plants can be counted on to remove all contaminants.
The body responsible for ensuring the purity and safety of our water supply in the UK is the Drinking Water Inspectorate. Mr Watts points that the Drinking Water Inspectorate is confident that the country’s “sophisticated treatment processes . . . installed to remove pesticides and other organic substances from source waters are equally effective at removing minute traces of pharmaceutical residues.” But, as Mr Watts goes on to point out, the reports of drug residues in water supplies make it clear that some systems are less than perfect for at least some drugs.
This BMJ piece has not done anything, obviously, to reassure me about the purity of drinking water, and my advice remains to avoid drinking it straight from the tap. One strategy might be to filter the water and relatively economical under-sink systems are available for this. I do not know how good they are at taking out specific drug residues. However, these filters will go at least some way to improving the purity of tap water, in a way which is quite environmentally friendly. One company in the UK that provides such filters is the Freshwater Filter company. You may like to look for comparable companies in your own country if appropriate.
Another option, of course, is to opt for bottled water that is likely to be far cleaner than tap water from a drug residue/chlorine/fluoride perspective, though may itself be tainted by residues from plastic bottles. Buying mineral water in glass gets around this, though it should also be borne in mind that bottled water may have a considerable environmental impact, especially if it is being drunk outside its country of origin.
References:
Watts G. How clean is your water? BMJ 2008;337:a237
I have read that bottled water, at least in the US, has also been found to have other contaminants, although I unfortunately can’t find the source of this information at this time. Also, bottled water bottles are an enormous source of pollution in landfills, apparently a huge percentage of them ends up there. Finally, politically and morally, buying bottled water that comes from third world countries can have negative repercussions. In conclusion, none of our choices is good!
I have no problems with tap water at all. I certainly have not seen any reliable evidence to convince me that there are dangerous or effective levels of drug residues, CL- or F-.
You have to bear in mind that bottled water is extremely expensive and, as Andrea mentions, extremely costly to produce.
i wonder is the remnants of all the vitamin tablets, herbal remedies, fish oils and mineral supplements that nutritionists encourage us to take can also end up in the water supply –
not sure the distinction between “pharmaceutical drugs” and any other type of chemical compound alleged to have a measurable effect on the human body.
clean, safe, cheap municipal drinking water has probably done more to improve health in the UK than any other public health initiative. When was the last cholera outbreak in the UK, for example?
taste is subjective, but I see no evidence that UK drinking water has any measurable risk to health (and especially not compared to the risk of being involved in an RTA whilst shopping for glass bottled mineral water.)
superburger
“not sure the distinction between “pharmaceutical drugs” and any other type of chemical compound alleged to have a measurable effect on the human body.”
I suppose one distinction is that the piece I was reporting on was about drug residues in drinking water and included reference to reports which found this. I’m not aware of any such reports regarding nutrients/herbal remedies/fish oils. Can you please provide us with such evidence? Or is your comment regarding this entirely theoretical/hypothetical?
Not sure where you’re going with your comments about cholera, because I don’t see how that somehow negates the fact that drug residues have been found in drinking water. Also, municipal drinking water may have reduced the risk of cholera, it is not risk free. It has, for instance, recently been a medium for cryptosporidium. See here:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article4210847.ece
I’m just curious as the whether it is possible that the residues from the vitamin and supplement industry could also end up in drinking water supplies. I can’t see why such a possibilty cannot be excluded.
Have any sort of drug residue been found in UK drinking water? And does the risk posed by such exposure outwieght the risk involved in travelling to shops to by glass bottled mineral water as you seem to recommend. (ignoring the more complicated risk involved in environmental impact of glass industry and ‘food miles’)
Clean, safe municipal drinking water is one of the greatest public health interventions of all time – sadly things go wrong from time to time (no system is perfect)
I seem to recall a few years ago Perrier being involved in something of a scare involving benzene.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9C0CE7D61F39F933A25751C0A966958260
I guess any industrial process (bottling water, or supplying it via taps) has its weaknesses.
superburger
“I’m just curious as the whether it is possible that the residues from the vitamin and supplement industry could also end up in drinking water supplies. I can’t see why such a possibilty cannot be excluded.”
You suggested there was no distinction and I gave you one. Are you happy to accept it?
Thanks for your comments regarding bottled water. Perhaps read my post again as see if you think my advice leaned more towards filtering or bottled water (I believe it is the former).
just think ‘pharmaceutical drug’ is an odd phrase, as vitamins, herbal supplements etc fall into the category, so whilst there many not (yet) be a specific example of the waste products of the nutrition industry being detected in drinking water the phrase ‘pharmaceutical drugs’ must surely include these compounds.
Glad you point out that there’s no evidence that the “freshwater filter” you recommend actually decreases the level of drug waste in tap water.
Although, untill drug waste is detected in UK tap water, and a link is made to human health I’ll stick with tap. Guess it’s about the relative risks, and I’m sure you’d agree municipal water poses an exceptionally low risk to health.
superburger said,
“i wonder is the remnants of all the vitamin tablets, herbal remedies, fish oils and mineral supplements that nutritionists encourage us to take can also end up in the water supply …”
I guess superburger could well derive benefit from water contaminated with prozac, olanzapine, sex hormones and the ubiquitous statin of course – but what is the worry over vitamins and mineral supplements?
He also said,
“Although, untill drug waste is detected in UK tap water, and a link is made to human health I’ll stick with tap.”
I get this feeling in my water … that superburger is a few acetylcholinesterase inhibitors short of a shilling and should thus be intoxicating himself with huge volumes of the municipal stuff.
Superburger said: “Clean, safe municipal drinking water is one of the greatest public health interventions of all time…”
I absolutely agree! Much more important than vaccines in terms of public health. I can’t see that the addition of various pharmaceutical residues improves the cleanliness or safety of said water, though.
The vitamins and fish oil are definitely worrisome. Has anyone researched this problem?
Yes, clean safe drinking water is ‘one of the greatest…’ etc but that is not the question, which , Is it safe and is it clean? Links to health in the short term are not easy to make but fluorine and chlorine (some water smells like swimming pools) compete with iodine thus possibly affecting the thyroid. Low thyroid hormones is ahuge problem in the UK. The point is that the tap water we are drinking is not what we were intended to drink.
There are often challenging thoughts in rapid responses to BMJ articles. This one from GP, Dr Gillian Cooper had me thinking,
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/337/jul02_1/a237#198864
“For many years I have been concerned that the amount of hormone going into the water system due to massive use of the oral contraceptive could be one of the causes of increasing male infertility. I hope this article will be a stimulus to more research in this area.”
Is reduced male fertility feasible from pill residues in the water? Does it matter? There are far too many of us on the planet and a little bit of all round infertility might be a good thing for the world.
yes, now a days due to over and inadvertent use of drugs in practice ( for treatment purposes), it has become a matter of concern. These drugs are coming in urine and feces and thereby reaching to our water bodies, ultimately to food chain. thereby we are exposed to these harmful effects of drugs in our human bodies as well in animal body. we must adpot some strategies to prevent these things.