Medicines in the Medicine Cabinet

Posted on | April 15, 2008 | Comments Off on Medicines in the Medicine Cabinet

Protecting your family and the environmentIt’s hard to know these days just what to do with the old medicines in your medicine cabinet. It seems one way or another, they’re a threat to other human beings.

Recently we learned that if you throw them out, and especially if you flush them down the toilet, they end up in our drinking water. A study by the Associated Press, conducted over a 5-month period, surveyed the water detection results of water authorities for our 50 largest metropolitan areas as well as dozens of regional water providers.

Finding number one: Many sites don’t routinely test the water for pharmaceuticals. It is not required by the FDA.

Finding number two: The vast majority of those who tested their source watersheds, the surface and ground water reservoirs they drew from, found trace levels of multiple medicines in the water.

Finding number three: The pharmaceuticals found represent a wide array of compounds — from painkillers and anti-depressants to hormones, chemotherapeutic agents and stimulants, just to name a few.

So what is the potential for harm to humans and the environment? The simple answer is: No one knows. PhRMA, the pharmaceutical industry trade association says the risk is minimal, if any. But the jury is out.

How is the stuff is getting into our water and why? First of all we’re buying a lot of drugs by prescription and over the counter in this country. 3.7 billion prescriptions were filled last year, along with an additional 3.3 billion over-the-counter purchases. That’s a rise of 12% over the past five years.

Even if taken appropriately, up to 90% of oral drugs are never actually metabolized in your bodies, but rather are discarded in your urine or stool. We tend to think our bodies "use up" the medicines we take, but in reality, that’s not the case most of the time. And that means the compounds are deposited into the wild or directly into water treatment plants.

So what do we do? Well, as therapists will tell you, the first step is to admit we have a problem. Thanks to the AP investigation, we’ve shined a light on it. Second, we need to study and understand it, and everyone from the FDA to major metropolitan centers to water-basin scientists are fast at work testing, testing, testing, with the intent of providing new directions regarding safe limits of the compounds.

What can all of us do as individuals? For starters, don’t flush your old drugs. Secure them and consider them hazardous waste for now. To learn about several other steps that can help, watch this week’s video, embedded with this blog post, or read the entire transcript, below. Then tell me how you feel about this issue. We’ll be keeping an eye on it.