Time to Chill Out Over Drugs in the Water
Maia Szalavitz
A recent investigative report by the Associated Press has found traces of various medications – ranging from painkillers to sex hormones to antibiotics – in the drinking water of various locations around the country. The report has now sparked Senate hearings over what is to be done.
But what this intensive investigative report lacks is context and clarity. For example, the story said the drugs were found in concentrations ranging from parts per billion to parts per trillion. The distinction between the two is not trivial: Imagine telling someone that they either owed $100,000 $1,000 or $1,000,000. One might be affordable, the other, catastrophic.
And the AP’s reporting doesn’t tell us anything about whether drugs can have effects in such minute quantities. Homeopathic “medicine” is based on the idea that extremely diluted substances can cure illness, but research suggests that any results are limited to the placebo effect. If I drink water with 1 part per billion of codeine in it (say, 1 billionth of a gram or .000000001 grams) but the effective dose is 60 milligrams, I am highly unlikely to get any pain relief – or any side effects. The dose, as they say, is what makes the poison. If it wasn’t, the naturally-occurring chemicals in vegetables would kill us.
The story also doesn’t provide any means of comparison - how many parts per billion of oil or gasoline or other kinds of contaminants (some of this water comes from treated sewage, scary to think about what lurks in parts per trillion levels there!) are normally found in drinking water? The AP cites possibly dangerous effects on fish, but doesn’t note that these could also be due to other pollutants.
After all this, it’s worth pointing out that the New York Times covered this issue much more thoughtfully a while back, here.
Filed under: Risk, Toxic Chemicals, risk analysis | Tagged: Associated Press, drinking water, drugs in water
I agree with you 100%. The local news had said that any side effects are highly unlikely (I think they said that it was 95% unlikely) and that any effects were “coincidental”.
A lot of water that reaches the consumer’s home is treated so it is ready to drink/cook/shower with. Did these surveyors not stop to think that they got their source from untreated water?
When you gave an example to illustrate the difference between parts per billion and parts per trillion, you gave two money amounts that are different by a factor of ten. I think you meant to compare $1,000 and $1,000,000.
Thanks for catching that! Change appended.
Around here (Puget Sound), they’re saying that while those drugs pose little to no risk to humans, they pose a HUGE threat to fish.
Slightly different tactic, but the results and recommendations will likely be the same… *sigh*
Fearmongering sucks.
A massive failure of logic, here. The dosage really isn’t the point. The point is that *our damn water supply is impure*. The systems in place to purify our water supply, the most basic and arguably most precious of our needs for life, have failed.
If this doesn’t cause the objective observer to consider the wider ramifications, then that person has probably already drunk too much of that water. Or something.
How much impurity is ok for you? And do you trust the bureaucratic systems that have already demonstrated their management failures in this regard, to maintain this ’safe’ level of impurity? Will their assurances suffice for you, that the level of ‘dose’ here are not and will not increase? I mean, it really is rather obtuse to suggest everyone relax and keep drinking this particular flavor of kool-aid.
I don’t see a massive failure of logic at all; rather, the opposite. Artisanal water, for instance, isn’t pure; in fact, its very impurity is what contributes to its flavor.
There are dozens of naturally-occurring chemicals in vegetables which could be toxic if you managed to consume enough off them - just as drinking too much water can kill you. In toxicology, it’s the size of the dose that makes something poisonous.
Your quest for purity is doomed. In fact, the category of pure/impure is vague and largely meaningless as you use it. Do you want your children to grow up in a perfectly sanitary, pure environment? If so, chances are their immune systems will be compromised and they’ll be more at risk from ill health in the long term.
Worrying about chemicals in the water in parts per trillion is pointless because there is no evidence that they’re going to have any effect on you. And frankly, you are exposed to much greater quantities of chemicals through the air you breathe when you walk outside your house, second-hand smoke, the food you eat, the dust in your house, and so forth. So yes, Maia is spot on: relax.
[...] in our drinking water has got everyone talking about water. I agree with Stats Blog that we should chill out until there is more information available. Switching to bottled water doesn’t make a whole [...]
FYI, the link to a pertinent NYTimes article does not work.
Consider clothes and dish washing detergents. And household soaps and other personal care products. These are all chemicals and all go down the drain in vastly greater quantities than pharmaceuticals. They partly survive waste water treatment and pass through to surface waters. Detergent residues give a new meaning to clean water!!
Caffeine originating from coffee, colas, and tea can be found in lakes and streams. There is a great deal of trace chemical residue complexity in the environment. The AP’s reporting on a few pharmaceuticals is simply the tip of the iceberg.
We might prefer that things were otherwise. It is just reality. Humanity discharges a great variety of chemical residues down household drains.
Can we have the water without the drugs and chemicals? Would you, ALL OF YOU, prefer to have your water without drugs and chemicals regardless of the “parts per whatever”?
I’m not talking about what is in Artisanal water. That would be a rediculous comparison. If the water tested only had the same minerals as Artisanal water does there wouldn’t have been a story.
JBW
In short. No, unfortunately, we can’t have water without chemicals. The most sophisticated processes in the world can’t produce pure water efficiently enough for a city’s uses.
The goal is then to minimize contaminants to a point where they are harmless. When that becomes our goal, then we can no longer disregard the dosage because zero parts per billion (or trillion) is unattainable.