California To Residents: Don't Flush Your Meds Into Our Rivers

LOS ANGELES — The state of California has a warning for its 36 million residents: Do not flush pharmaceuticals down the toilet or drain, or they may end up in a river near you.

Or, it turns out, even in the drinking water.

State and local officials are teaming with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for a "No Drugs Down the Drain Week," starting with events Oct. 2. The program recommends that drugs be dropped at special collection sites or tossed in the trash.

The event comes less than two weeks after The Associated Press published an investigative report about the dangers of flushing millions of pounds of unused pharmaceuticals annually by the American health care industry and consumers. The ongoing AP investigation has revealed that tests show the drinking water supplies of at least 46 million Americans contain minute concentrations of pharmaceuticals, including antibiotics, anti-convulsants and mood stabilizers.

Researchers have found evidence that even extremely diluted concentrations of pharmaceutical residues harm fish, frogs and other aquatic species in the wild. Related research reports that human cells fail to grow normally in the lab when exposed to trace concentrations of certain drugs.

The AP first reported on the pharmaceutical contamination issue in March.

The awareness week is part of a bill sponsored by Sen. Joe Simitian that funds pilot projects allowing consumers to drop off old prescriptions at retailers and public facilities.

"I think the public will step up, if they're told how to dispose of drugs the right way," Simitian said. "If you want people to do the right thing, make it easy for them to do it."

Comments

[CrzyRussell]

I'd rather flush it than risk the possibility that kids or animals can get into them

[Donde]

Yet another topic to scare and blame without any specific solutions.

Ingested meds are naturally expelled by both humans and animals, not to mention the corporate pollution of land and water.

So what exactly is it I should do with those pills that I had an allergic reaction to and how does this counter the larger issue?

[marymansour]

It'll make the fish high.

[Swerinjer]

When I flush my toilet it goes to the river? DISGUSTING.

[EnviroLitigator]

Mespace makes a key point. To the extent we understand that discharge of pharmaceuticals to the sewage treatment process, the majority may be coming from human urinary and fecal excretions, and not from someone flushing medicines down the toilet. Understanding the origin makes a major difference in terms of how the solution is to be approached. Given the various manners in which medicines are metabolized by the body, it would not surprise me that we will have a differential release pattern (bodily origin vs. intentional discharge) almost medicine by medicine. One area of research that has not been mentioned, of course, is whether it is possible to design sewage treatment techniques to deal with the presence of medicines in the "waste stream".

[Jain]

The big pharm companies are the ones dumping into the water supply. Next are the hospitals.
Let's stop blaming the vicitms and regulate the perps.

[lfotweaker]

Then I guess air travel should also be banned, because of the perchlorate...

[mespace]

People aren't flushing as much medication as one thinks. By consuming medications in the first place, it has to exit the body. Where does it go? Down the toilet. There is no way to get this out of the water supply other than not going to the bathroom. Why did the state of California just assume people were flushing bottles of medications and not figure out the real source of the "mood stabilizers"? I mean who puts their unused meds down a sink drain? http://mespace.wordpress.com

[hypnotoad72]

Those residents are taxpayers and as such, not only own the land, but have the right to throw meds, take a leak, or even fornicate in them if they wished.

Mind you, they ought to be more intelligent than that...

Maybe they chuck out the bottles too -- someone will nick their info and get some free refills too... :-S

[Checquoline]

This is very true. If you throw an empty bottle into the trash that has three refills on it someone may very well take the RX# and refill it. Also meds that you just don't need anymore can be retrieved and taken by kids or anyone. A good solution would be to return them to the pharmacy for disposal if the pharmacy would do it correctly. What ever the solution is, it needs to be put into effect soon.