Harvard Health: Pharmaceutical Pollution in the Water

While water that reaches or faucets appears clear, clean, and safe from bacteria, viruses, strong acids, and metals, chemicals from prescription medications, perfumes, lotions, and over-the counter drugs are in our lakes, rivers, and streams.

Drug take-back programs are supposed to encourage the correct disposal of the chemicals that can wash off into water. However, this is not being done by the typical American. One man’s use of testosterone cream can end up in the water as the equivalent to the natural excretions from 300 men. Hospitals tend to be less of a problem than nursing homes since they have pharmacies on-site that return unused drugs to the manufacturer for disposal or credit. Nursing homes have been found to flush medications down toilets or drains.

Drug manufacturing plants are a major source and have 10 to 1,000 times higher contamination rates downstream from their facilities. Meanwhile, agriculture is another major source with two trillion pounds of animal waste that is laced with hormones and antibiotics. These hormones and antibiotics can make their way into groundwater or waterways.

Sewage treatment plants are not designed to remove pharmaceuticals from the water and neither are the facilities that treat water to make it drinkable. Certain amounts are removed for other purposes, but no treatment is used specifically for removal of these substances.

Although there is uncertainty about human health effects, there is evidence that pharmaceuticals in the water affect the life that resides there. Numerous studies have shown chemicals and estrogen can have feminizing effects on male fish. Birth control pills, hormone treatments, and estrogen women produce can be excreted into the water. Research has also shown antidepressant medication concentrated in the brain tissue of fish.

Read this Harvard Medical School article to find out more about what may be in your tap water and how to reduce your pharmaceutical footprint: https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/drugs-in-the-water