The title of this post may not be as far fetched as it seems. According to a report in today’s New York Times the concentrations of pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) in the water supply is steadily increasing because people are disposing of these products either via their urine, washing them off in the shower or by flushing unused or out-of-date products away.

Reports of contamination with pharmaceutical residues can be alarming, even when there is no evidence that anyone has been harmed. In 2004, for example, the British government reported that eight commonly used drugs had been detected in rivers receiving effluent from sewage treatment plants. A spokeswoman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said it was “extremely unlikely” that the residues threatened people, because they were present in very low concentrations. Nevertheless, news reports portrayed a nation of inadvertent drug users — “a case of hidden mass medication of the unsuspecting public,” as one member of Parliament was quoted as saying.
Researchers suspect that the volume of P.P.C.P.’s excreted into the nation’s surface water and groundwater is increasing. For one thing, per capita drug use is on the rise, not only with the introduction of new drugs but also with the use of existing drugs for new purposes and among new or expanding groups of patients, like children and aging baby boomers.

Since most doctors are now giving out statins like Halloween candy I suspect that it won’t be long before our streams and rivers are filled with them. Then Dr. John Reckless will have his way. We will all be getting statins in our drinking water.

7 Comments

  1. This evidently explains the universal “inadvertent user” fee that the drug companies are currently lobbying.

  2. Dr. Eades,
    I forgot to give you those studies a few days ago on carbohydrates and GH supression. Check out this little review that Anthony Colpo did on his message board back in Sept. 06. That’s my response below his – he never got back to me so maybe you will have some thoughts as to why the studies did not show GH was suppressed by carb ingestion.
    http://www.lowcarbmuscle.com/forums/showthread.php?t=125
    Hi Neal–
    Thanks for the link.  I’ll read through it.
    Cheers–
    MRE 

  3. Or maybe they could spin it like Fluoride! It’s good for you! Scientists say so, and you can’t argue with science!
    I’m hardly a conspiracy theorist, (And not sold on the potential ‘harm’ of Fluroide in our water supply, either!) but after taking several big hits on drugs that were previously ‘proven’ safe and later found out NOT to be, I think large pharmaceutical companies are trying to flood the public consciousness so that, no matter WHAT facts are presented in the future, people will still go with their guts and support the argument that has “Truthiness.”
    I mean, everyone KNOWS that you have to eat as much grain as you can choke down, and meat and saturated fats (Excuse me, I meant “Artery Clogging Saturated Fats”) are virtually poison. Who needs the studies by some ‘radicals’ to disprove what we already ‘KNOW’ to be true?
    [/sarcasm]

  4. Anyone know if water filters will keep these out? I have a 2 stage that gets out tons of stuff but I doubt stantins are listed. It’s only my drinking water though, any chance we can absorb it some other way?
    I don’t know the answer to your question.  Maybe someone else will.
    MRE 

  5. A Wikipedia search for statins shows the stucture of the first, lovastatin. It is a compound of 3 six-sided carbon rings attached to each other and with other molecular components hanging off the sides. If your filter will take out/reduce benzene (6 sided carbon ring with no other components) it should take out statins.
    As for whether statins can be absorbed through the skin, I don’t know. Do the contraindications include a warning for pregnant women not to handle the medicine? That might be the best indication that they can be absorbed through the skin, since statins can cause some horrible birth defects. (so much for telling women as young as 20 years old that they should be screened and treated for high cholesterol!)
    Hi Martha–
    I don’t think statins can be absorbed through the skin, but I wouldn’t wallow in a trough of them.  Your comment got hung up in my spam filter, which is why it took so long to get posted.  Sorry.
    Cheers–
    MRE 

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