Drugs + The Environment
Hospitals' drug problem
By Janet Raloff Web edition : Tuesday, June 9th, 2009
Considerable attention has focused, in recent years, on why trace residues of prescription medicines contaminate most lakes, streams and estuaries. Excretion by consumers is one obvious source. But disposal of pharmaceutical wastes is another. And who has the most drugs to dump? Hospitals.
SOURCE
SCIENCE NEWS
LINK TO FULL ARTICLE
Drugs on Tap
By Janet Raloff Web edition : Monday, March 10th, 2008
If you’ve listened to the radio or read the newspapers and online media this morning, you’ve undoubtedly encountered reports of pharmaceuticals and over-the-counter drugs tainting tap water in major metropolitan cities around the United States. Most news outlets play it as if the concept is new. Long-time readers of Science News know that it isn’t.
I reported on the finding of a heart medicine in Berlin tap water 10 years ago and the acknowledgment by federal scientists 2 years later that they’d seen the same drug 20 years earlier in Western U.S. groundwater reservoirs that serve as a source of drinking water. And of course, there were our reports of drugs in U.S. drinking water—first in New Orleans in 2000, and then outside Atlanta in late 2001.
SOURCE
SCIENCE NEWS
LINK TO FULL ARTICLE
By Janet Raloff Web edition : Tuesday, June 9th, 2009
Considerable attention has focused, in recent years, on why trace residues of prescription medicines contaminate most lakes, streams and estuaries. Excretion by consumers is one obvious source. But disposal of pharmaceutical wastes is another. And who has the most drugs to dump? Hospitals.
SOURCE
SCIENCE NEWS
LINK TO FULL ARTICLE
Drugs on Tap
By Janet Raloff Web edition : Monday, March 10th, 2008
If you’ve listened to the radio or read the newspapers and online media this morning, you’ve undoubtedly encountered reports of pharmaceuticals and over-the-counter drugs tainting tap water in major metropolitan cities around the United States. Most news outlets play it as if the concept is new. Long-time readers of Science News know that it isn’t.
I reported on the finding of a heart medicine in Berlin tap water 10 years ago and the acknowledgment by federal scientists 2 years later that they’d seen the same drug 20 years earlier in Western U.S. groundwater reservoirs that serve as a source of drinking water. And of course, there were our reports of drugs in U.S. drinking water—first in New Orleans in 2000, and then outside Atlanta in late 2001.
SOURCE
SCIENCE NEWS
LINK TO FULL ARTICLE