Few regulations for drugs in drinking water

However, water managers detected scant concentrations similar to other places, suggesting they found so much largely because they tested for a larger list of pharmaceuticals — not necessarily because their watersheds are more contaminated. David A. Katz, a deputy water commissioner for the city, said the water was tested so heavily out of vigilance: “We choose to know; we choose to look.”

Wary of public alarm
Under no obligation to tell, Philadelphia keeps it quiet when tests show that drugs have reached its drinking water, the AP found. Philadelphia Water Department spokeswoman Laura Copeland provided the findings for an AP survey but added: “We don’t want to create any perception where people would be alarmed.”

John Muldowney, who oversees the city’s three drinking water treatment plants, said no immediate upgrades are planned to filter out pharmaceuticals. “Based just on the data that’s available now ... we would be risking spending a lot of money, a lot of public funds, for very little health benefit,” he explained.

Government leaders seem largely to share that attitude. “We’re not really doing anything on this right now,” says a spokesman for U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., though he has earmarked funds in the past to study environmental drugs in his state.

Congress held hearings in 2006 on endocrine-disrupting compounds after researchers discovered that the Potomac River, dotted with sewage treatment plants, contains feminized male bass which create egg yolk proteins, a process usually restricted to females. But the hearings produced no new proposals.

In Boston, drug makers, state representatives and water managers have been grinding through their third year trying to craft a compromise approach to dealing with the problem on a national scale. Scott Cassel, director of the Product Stewardship Institute, which is hosting the dialogue, says controlling waterborne pharmaceuticals will make the disposal of old computers “seem simple by comparison.”

“There’s definitely a growing movement and a growing concern, but at this point there isn’t a lot of direction from the federal government,” adds Susan Frechette, a policy expert at the institute.

Grumbles, the EPA’s top water pollution official, said the agency has embarked on four studies specific to the presence of pharmaceuticals and personal care products in wastewater and fish tissue. One “national study,” expected to be completed next year, will look at the inflow and outflow at nine sewage plants; another will study sludge from 74 randomly selected sewage treatment plants.

The fish tissue study will focus on five streams where the flow primarily originates at a sewage treatment plant.

Just two months ago the agency developed three new methods to detect and quantify about 160 different pharmaceuticals and personal care products, including steroids and hormones, in wastewater and sewage sludge, Grumbles said.

‘The toilet is not a trash can’
A year ago, the federal government put out its first consumer guidelines for discarding leftover or expired medicines. The goal was to slow the flow of drugs flushed down the toilet. Though Grumbles acknowledged that human excretions are the major factor in spreading pharmaceuticals through the waste stream, he said it is important for all Americans to realize “the toilet is not a trash can.”

But the guidelines immediately drew criticism from some environmentalists, water treatment experts and pharmaceutical researchers who say they are contradictory, confusing, and don’t solve the problem.

The guidelines say that about a dozen specific drugs should still be flushed down the toilet to keep others from finding and abusing them. The rest should be mixed with something unsavory like coffee grounds and tossed into the trash. That just moves the problem, though: The drugs end up at landfills, where they can slowly seep into the groundwater.

The EPA is also engaged in a national study — expected to be completed by the end of the summer — to examine how long-term health care facilities and nursing homes dispose of pharmaceuticals.

“We don’t really know what to do with waste pharmaceuticals,” acknowledges Laura Brannen, executive director of the professional group Hospitals for a Healthy Environment.

The government barely oversees drugs spilled or tossed by hospitals and drug makers. Discharge limits for drug makers concentrate on chemicals used in manufacturing, not the drugs themselves; Virginia Cunningham, an environmental executive at drug maker GlaxoSmithKline PLC, says the industry spills very little of the drugs that turn up in waterways.

At hospitals, the EPA flags about three dozen specific drugs as hazardous waste. Though their dangers are acknowledged, the rules for special disposal have been casually observed, according to environmental specialists in the industry. They say many hospitals still dump some of those hazardous pharmaceuticals into their other garbage.

MORE FROM MORE HEALTH NEWS

More Health News Section Front

U.S. expands efforts to regulate meds in water Virtual alert texts kin if you're sent to a hospital Largest-ever kidney swap donors, patients meet Study: 15,000 will die from CT scans done in 1 year New VA patients younger, more often women Wireless devices may read words in the brain Pregnant woman claims hospital ignored her U.S. needs to address vaccine safety, report says Power line pollutants pose health risks Promising treatment for adults with sickle cell More Health News Section Front   Add More Health News headlines to your news reader: