AP probe detects drugs in drinking water of 41mn Americans

A stunning investigation by Associate Press has found that a vast array of pharmaceuticals reside in the drinking water supply that serves at least 41 million people in the United States.

Presenting the mind-boggling results of their research, the AP researchers said they found all sorts of pharmaceuticals, including antibiotics, sex hormones, anti-convulsion drugs, psychiatric drugs, painkillers, epileptic medications, and chemicals to treat high cholesterol, in drinking water supplies of at least 41 million people of 24 major metropolitan areas, from Southern California to Northern New Jersey, from Detroit to Louisville, Ky.

Despite the fact that the concentrations of these pharmaceuticals are tiny (far below the levels of a medical dose), and utilities insist their treated water is safe, but the findings have raised worries among scientists about long-term consequences to human health.

"People think that if they take a medication, their body absorbs it and it disappears, but of course that's not the case," said Environmental Protection Agency scientist Christian Daughton, one of the first to draw attention to the issue of pharmaceuticals in the drinking water supplies in the country.

The AP report, set to be published today, shows that anti-depressants, antacids, synthetic hormones from birth control pills, and many other human and animal medicines have been found by the researchers in the water across the country. While a sex hormone is found in San Francisco, the water in New York tested positive for heart medicines and a prescription tranquilizer.

In Philadelphia, 56 pharmaceuticals or byproducts are found in treated drinking water, including medicines for pain, infection, high cholesterol, asthma, epilepsy, mental illness and heart problem. The investigation found anti-epileptic and anti-anxiety medications in a portion of the treated water for 18.5 million people in Southern California and a metabolized angina medicine and the mood-stabilizing carbamazepine in drinking water in a water treatment plant serving 850,000 people in Northern New Jersey.

Similarly, about six pharmaceuticals found in the water for Washington D.C. and surrounding areas and three medications in the water supplied to Tucson, Arizona.

After reviewing hundreds of scientific reports, analyzing federal drinking water databases, visiting environmental study sites and treatment plants and interviewing more than 230 officials, academics and scientists, the experts of the AP National Investigative Team prepared their report. The team also surveyed the 50 largest cities of the country and a dozen other major water providers, as well as smaller community water providers in all 50 states.

The findings were revealed as part of the first federal research on pharmaceuticals in water supplies, and those results are detailed in an investigative AP report.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Department of Agriculture have stared screening Washington's and other cities' water supplies for pharmaceuticals in the water.