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. \
Source
Drug traces found in cities' water
MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT - Globe and Mail:
February 10, 2003
Trace amounts of prescription drugs have been detected in the drinking water
of four Canadian communities, including Montreal and Hamilton, the first
time pharmaceutical products have been discovered in North America's
municipal water supplies.
The drugs were found through laboratory tests funded jointly by The Globe
and Mail and CTV of water samples taken from 10 Canadian communities.
The tests detected carbamazepine, an anticonvulsant given for epileptic
seizures, in tap water from Montreal, Hamilton, and Brooks, a rural
community in southern Alberta downstream of Calgary's sewage outflow.
Another drug, gemfibrozil, used to reduce cholesterol levels, was found in
Portage la Prairie, a Manitoba community known for farming and food
processing.
The tests, by Enviro-Test Laboratories of Ottawa, found the drug residues in
concentrations in the 6.5- to 70-parts-per-trillion range.
One part per trillion is the equivalent of a grain of salt in an Olympic
size swimming pool, and concentrations around this level are at the edge of
what researchers can detect using modern laboratory equipment.
It is not known what health risk, if any, is posed by drinking or bathing in
water containing trace amounts of drugs.
"Right now, there [are] a lot of unanswered research questions, research
that has to be conducted," said Detlef (Deib) Birkholz, vice-president of
research at Enviro-Test and adjunct professor at the University of Alberta's
faculty of pharmacy.
He said that "even though the concentrations are a thousand- or a
million-fold below therapeutic levels, they could be having effects" on
sensitive populations, such as fetuses and people with weakened immune
systems.
Officials from the communities said they had no idea of why their water had
drug residues.
The Globe-CTV tests were not intended to provide an exhaustive picture of
drinking water supplies in Canada and researchers do not know if there are
any ill effects for people exposed to extremely small quantities of
pharmaceuticals.
But earlier studies have found trace amounts of drugs in some lakes and
rivers, raising concerns that the chemical compounds could also be making
their way into drinking water.
In Hamilton, the city draws water from a pipe that juts nearly a kilometre
into Lake Ontario. The intake is far from any pollution source.
"It is strange. We are pretty far out in Lake Ontario," said Lou DiGironimo,
director of Hamilton's municipal water department.
In Brooks, a community surrounded by vegetable and grain farms that draws on
the Bow River to slake the thirst of its 12,500 residents, an official said
the town's water is extensively treated and considered of good quality.
"We meet all Alberta environmental stuff and we chlorinate and filter and
the whole thing," said Bill Prentice, manager of the town's works and
utility department.
Health Canada's director of regulatory affairs, Karen Proud, cautions that
research is so preliminary that regulators don't know whether the drug
traces are hazardous. But she said there is enough evidence to warrant
investigation.
"Whenever something turns up in drinking water that's not naturally there,
there is a concern," she said.
In Europe, drugs have been detected in drinking water supplies, though
similar research hasn't been published in Canada and the United States.
Health Canada and Environment Canada are currently surveying 24 Ontario
communities to check if drug residues have entered water supplies. The
agencies are considering expanding their testing to the rest of Canada next
year.
There is no requirement in Canada to test drinking water for drug residues
and no regulatory limits on these contaminants.
"This is so new from a scientific perspective that nobody's even thought
about it," said Mark Servos, a research scientist at Environment Canada who
is heading the Ontario water study.
Drugs are entering the environment because many pharmaceuticals are not
fully metabolized in the bodies of those using them.
For carbamazepine, about 30 per cent is excreted unaltered by users.
If there is good news in the survey, it is that most of the water Canadians
draw from their taps appears to have no drug residues, or has them at such
low concentrations that they are below laboratory detection limits.
Water samples were also taken from Edmonton, Calgary, Halifax, Vancouver,
Toronto, and Walkerton, Ont., home of Canada's worst case of water-borne
illness, the E. coli outbreak that killed seven residents and sickened
thousands in May, 2000. In these communities no residues were found of the
more than 40 commonly used drugs and chemicals that Enviro-Test checked for.
Source
