I missed this last week, what with the holiday break and all, but outside of the focus on Copenhagen, there was some real environmental progress going on. "Federal regulators under President Barack Obama have sharply shifted course on long-standing policy toward pharmaceutical residues in the nation's drinking water, taking a critical first step toward regulating some of the contaminants while acknowledging they could threaten human health."
An AP story (via OnEarth.org and here) has reported that at least 51 million Americans drink prescription-drug contaminated water, including sex hormones, antibiotics and Prozac. Keep that in mind when your doctor asks you to list the medications you are currently taking.
So a key element to the new strategy: the FDA has declared as a goal to have all unused medications returned (and ultimately incinerated), rather than flushed into the water system. But, that doesn't address everything - unmetabolized drugs enter the water system through waste, too, as well as from other sources. This story and related graphic nicely shows the process.
Dealing with this is a huge problem, but the EPA and the FDA are on the right course in classifying pharmaceuticals as contaminants subject to regulation, and beginning programs to identify them and study their impact.
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