http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/03/10/pharma.water1.ap/index.html

So fluoride gets added to our water for our teeth, but what about all the lingering things that aren't added on purpose and aren't taken out through filtration?

Scary thought that I am taking residual drugs (5 from this article in Columbus' water system) every time I go to the tap and drink some water. Even worse is the thought my daughter has drank tap water (mostly drinks bottled water now because of things like this). The article says that bottled water hasn't been tested yet, so I don't even get comfort in her drinking non-tap water.

Remember when the joke was that eventually it will be pointed out that even water causes cancer? Well, this may just be the tip of the iceberg in regards to our water supply. Many metro areas still haven't released their data.

That's just astounding to me. I guess it makes perfect sense, but it's still scary.

The article says that bottled water hasn't been tested yet, so I don't even get comfort in her drinking non-tap water.

I think the key here is to go for the waters that aren't sourced from a municipal source. I drink Crystal's "Spring Water", which is actually from a spring (whereas their "Drinking Water" is from a municipal source).

Does anyone know if there are consumer grade water filters that will effectively filter this junk?

Unless the water is tested and shown to not have things in the water that are harmful/added I do not believe you can't get bottled water any better than water you would put through a filter at home and IF you have good plumbing of your own that does not add sediment to the water going through your pipes. I believe that bottled water is not regulated because we all would be surprised to find out is the same as what comes through our house with a filter.

One of those things that have us suckered into buying thinking it is better than the tap water filtered.

The human race advanced eons without filters for their water... I think we can handle a few parts per billion of someone else's drug laced piss.

Although I think a contributing factor to the Roman Empire's downfall was their lead pipes. So having mercury in our water or in our vaccines is probably on the same avoid-if-possible side of the scale.

But we need to be careful we're not having the same reaction to this that the germophoebias do to their bodies. We need germs to build an immune system... hell, our body may need some of this shit that we're filtering out of our water.

The human body is quite remarkable in that way.

The human race advanced eons without filters for their water... I think we can handle a few parts per billion of someone else's drug laced piss. ....We need germs to build an immune system... hell, our body may need some of this shit that we're filtering out of our water.



Have to remember like 200 years ago 50% of children under the age of 1 died. Antibiotics saveed ALOT of people. I can agree though about the immune system....why getting a cold is not always a bad thing. I believe it builds the immune system to fight the big bugs when they come along. There just is a balance we have to keep. :)

Starrla, the reason that the tap water has these drugs in it is because it's treated waste. Bottled water from a spring doesn't have this issue, because it's not treated waste. Bottled water from a municipal source probably does.

The human race advanced eons without filters for their water... I think we can handle a few parts per billion of someone else's drug laced piss.

For most of those eons, there were natural filters on the water. The evaporation/precipitation process alone is a massive purifier.

For most of those eons, there were also never synthetic chemicals introduced into the water supply. Since it was clean, of course it wouldn't need as much filtration.

For most of those eons, people and animals alike would instinctively avoid stagnant water, because it's not clean. Today, we embrace it.

I think it's worth a little bit more critical thought, seeing as how water comprises over half of your body.

Spring water is someone's pee too, just takes a longer route to get there. It's all the same water.

We're all living longer and longer despite things all seeming so scary. Long and short is some company is gonna make a boat load of cash selling a filter for this to city governments while others are gonna panic and buy bottled city water in stores instead with a ridiculous markup.

I'm with Akipt here on this one. Much ado about nothing.

Except...when you consider the challenges of maintaining municipal water supplies, any threat to that water should be taken seriously. Our local news just ran a story about communities with contaminated water who are told NOT to drink from the tap for a few days. The first problem in the story was that it took authorities a couple of weeks to get the word out, the second was the ludicrous notion that now that the water was clean again residents could drink from the tap - never mind the miles of underground pipes full of contaminated water that needed to be flushed first. This is not an exact science.

From the original article:
But at a conference last summer, Mary Buzby -- director of environmental technology for drug maker Merck & Co. Inc. -- said: "There's no doubt about it, pharmaceuticals are being detected in the environment and there is genuine concern that these compounds, in the small concentrations that they're at, could be causing impacts to human health or to aquatic organisms."

Recent laboratory research has found that small amounts of medication have affected human embryonic kidney cells, human blood cells and human breast cancer cells. The cancer cells proliferated too quickly; the kidney cells grew too slowly; and the blood cells showed biological activity associated with inflammation.

Also, pharmaceuticals in waterways are damaging wildlife across the nation and around the globe, research shows. Notably, male fish are being feminized, creating egg yolk proteins, a process usually restricted to females. Pharmaceuticals also are affecting sentinel species at the foundation of the pyramid of life -- such as earthworms in the wild and zooplankton in the laboratory, studies show.So it's not a research article, but still - I'd call these paragraphs cause for concern.

Kelraz, you can't even begin to compare chemically treated water to water that's been evaporated, precipitated, and then filtered through rock and sediment.

Of course, nothing's as clean as we'd like to think it is, but that's no reason to not even care. You might as well say "Everything's bad for us anyway, so just have that pizza and wash it down with a 64oz Coke. It's all the same!"

We can't escape our waste we have....only the fittest will survive! bleh

Kelraz, you can't even begin to compare chemically treated water to water that's been evaporated, precipitated, and then filtered through rock and sediment.

Of course, nothing's as clean as we'd like to think it is, but that's no reason to not even care. You might as well say "Everything's bad for us anyway, so just have that pizza and wash it down with a 64oz Coke. It's all the same!"

Thats true, they aren't the same process, but spring water has a lot of other maladies to worry about.

Most has a lower PH than tap water (or in other words, is acidic) and carry higher levels of metals such as iron, manganese, copper, lead, and zinc. Most bottled water companies don't do PH tests on their product. Also, they use reverse osmosis filtration which does remove minerals designed to be absorbed by our bodies through water such as calcium, magnesium, and potassium. So you might get a 1 billionth of a dose of Viagra in your tap water, its still better for you (not to mention cheaper and better for the environment) than bottled water.

If you're in an area you only can get spring water, its not gonna kill you (though you will need to take vitamins to make up your dietary losses). If you're in an area where you can only get municipal water, its certainly not gonna kill you either. But paying for water shipped from halfway across the country when you can get it a lot cheaper at any faucet is just silly (especially when you've never visited said springs and have no idea what conditions the water is bottled in).

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/nation/03/10/0310drugwater.html

Waste from animals that had been given veterinary drugs also plays a role.

"Rural consumers who draw water from wells aren't in the clear either, experts say.
Even users of bottled water and home filtration systems don't necessarily avoid exposure. Bottlers, some of which simply repackage tap water, do not typically treat or test for pharmaceuticals, according to the industry's main trade group. The same goes for home filtration systems.

http://www.statesman.com/shared-gen/content/shared-gen/ap/National/PharmaWater_II.html?cxntlid=inform


That research follows a 2003 study in northern Texas, where every bluegill, black crappie and channel catfish researchers caught living downstream of a wastewater treatment plant tested positive for the active ingredients in two widely used antidepressants — one of the first times the residues of such drugs were detected in wildlife.
_In several recent studies of soil fertilized with livestock manure or with the sludge product from wastewater treatment plants, American scientists found earthworms had accumulated those same compounds, while vegetables — including corn, lettuce and potatoes — had absorbed antibiotics. "These results raise potential human health concerns," wrote researchers

http://www.statesman.com/shared-gen/content/shared-gen/ap/National/PharmaWater_I.html?cxntlid=inform

One technology, reverse osmosis, removes virtually all pharmaceutical contaminants but is very expensive for large-scale use and leaves several gallons of polluted water for every one that is made drinkable.
Another issue: There's evidence that adding chlorine, a common process in conventional drinking water treatment plants, makes some pharmaceuticals more toxic.
Human waste isn't the only source of contamination. Cattle, for example, are given ear implants that provide a slow release of trenbolone, an anabolic steroid used by some bodybuilders, which causes cattle to bulk up. But not all the trenbolone circulating in a steer is metabolized. A German study showed 10 percent of the steroid passed right through the animals.
Water sampled downstream of a Nebraska feedlot had steroid levels four times as high as the water taken upstream. Male fathead minnows living in that downstream area had low testosterone levels and small heads.

Most has a lower PH than tap water (or in other words, is acidic) and carry higher levels of metals such as iron, manganese, copper, lead, and zinc. Most bottled water companies don't do PH tests on their product. Also, they use reverse osmosis filtration which does remove minerals designed to be absorbed by our bodies through water such as calcium, magnesium, and potassium. So you might get a 1 billionth of a dose of Viagra in your tap water, its still better for you (not to mention cheaper and better for the environment) than bottled water.

If you're in an area you only can get spring water, its not gonna kill you (though you will need to take vitamins to make up your dietary losses). If you're in an area where you can only get municipal water, its certainly not gonna kill you either.

Wait. They use a process that removes minerals, which is bad, but it doesn't remove minerals, which is bad? Eh?

Either way, if you aren't taking a multi-vitamin, you're nuts. I doubt anyone reading this has a diet healthy and varied enough to not benefit from a supplement. I'd take one no matter what my water source, so that's moot to me.

But paying for water shipped from halfway across the country when you can get it a lot cheaper at any faucet is just silly (especially when you've never visited said springs and have no idea what conditions the water is bottled in).

I get Crystal Springs water from its distributor about 30m away, which is bottled from a mountain spring source within the state.

What's "just silly" is drinking the tap water in Atlanta. Or, anywhere, apparently. Hit Google and check out the EPA's list of acceptable levels of toxins (things like lead, motor oil, arsenic, etc) in tap water. Enjoy!

Sorry, the acidity actually strips the pipes of those metals (iron, manganese, copper, lead, zinc) in their plants. Calcium, magnesium, and potassium aren't naturally found in piping.

You gotta remember that mountain spring in Georgia is acceptable to acid rain, farm and plant wastewater, and everything else too. It isn't magically conjured by a mage, it comes out of the dirt. Seriously, take a bottle of that water and put it under a piece of litmus paper. You'll find that its not as crystal clean as their name would like you to believe.

Also be careful, because the municipal air you're breathing is really dangerous and gonna kill you. All these people in your town exhaling dangerous diseases! Lucky for you, I can sell you natural cloud air without all the harmful toxins your neighbors are exhaling. Just send me a check.

You gotta remember that mountain spring in Georgia is acceptable to acid rain, farm and plant wastewater, and everything else too.
Kelraz, do they have a lot of farms on the sides of mountains where you're from? Do you think there's more acid rain in downtown Atlanta or a mountain spring? You're really stretching it at this point.

A lot of bottled water is no better than tap. I agree.

However, if you haven't already been lead poisoned down to 70 IQ from the tap, it's very easy to select a sensible bottled water. Conjuring up hyperbole strawmen doesn't change that.

The fact is, this stuff makes up over half of our bodies. Willfully choosing to pump ourselves full of this synthetic chemical cocktail, even in trace amounts, seems foolish when it's not necessary.

I like driving to my cabin in the Summer and drinking water from our artesian spring, water just bubbles out of the ground. However living in Milwaukee they usually would boast about our drinking water quality because of the upgraded Water Works system they did back in the 90's...we had the largest crypto outbreak than any place in the nation. However the news says otherwise today:

http://www.wisn.com/news/15554754/detail.html

Z-otVQ_R8OU

[quote=Ibudin;135645] However living in Milwaukee they usually would boast about our drinking water qualityquote]

I thought Anheuser_Busch supplied the drinking water in Milwaukee?:p