What Was in the Water Spitzer Drank?

Just like Eliot Spitzer, all of us have addictions to unhook from. For news junkies, the addiction to disposable news hooks, celebrity pix, or sex teases momentarily diverts but offers little substance.

Like addictive foods that contain MSG and other excitotoxins chemicals that trick your brain to experience "yum" even when food has zero nutrition and tastes like dog doo, tricky stories seduce you, but change nothing.

The reason I'm upset about this, is because today as the soon to be ex-governor's peccadilloes dominate the media, an important health investigative piece passes into yesterday's news oblivion.

The Associated Press in a commendable job of true health investigative journalism paid reporters to delve beyond governmental denial and uncover the pervasive presence of pharmaceutical drugs in the water supply of 41 million people.

Which of the two news stories will affect you personally long-term? Spitzer's thrilling adventure or the health story? And which one are you clicking to read about, signaling audience appeal to news editors?

The AP reviewed "hundreds of scientific reports (and) analyzed federal drinking water databases... They also surveyed the nation's 50 largest cities... as well as smaller community water providers in all 50 states." They found anti-anxiety medications, heart medications, you name it. Yet some care more about Spitzer's placement of his privates---- than they do about drinking drug-saturated water.

The media's role in selling the Iraq war prompts outrage, yet in the so-called "soft" content areas of lifestyle and health, real health stories, like the AP's report, receive minimal attention. Mostly the media rolls over for the health spins purveyed by the government and vested medical interests. What passes for health news are either:

A. Easy "health tips" pretending to fix whatever's wrong today, without considering underlying causes.

Or:

B. Uncritical coverage that purveys recent findings as "objective proof," while overlooking that industries underwrite that research and will readily bury studies that don't support their intended product claims. So much for objectivity.

Now after months of independent health investigation, the media fails to unpack the AP study's ramifications because the scandal du jour is considered more attention-worthy.

How will those chemical exposures in water impact human health? Scientists don't know and the press doesn't ask.

Are they in your body? What do you think?

In Bill Moyers 2001 PBS special Trade Secrets, tests revealed that Moyers personally had a body burden of eighty-four different chemicals. We need more testing of the environment and our own bodies, and better understanding of multiple impacts and synergies.

As it is, most health news coverage fails to probe the interconnection between our personal health and environment toxins, or to face up to them as contributors to rising cancer rates.

Nor do reporters question whether any prescription drugs can be properly regulated when in critical federal regulatory agencies, it's well established that so-called public servants regularly traipse in and out of positions in the industries they regulate.

That compromised policy context shapes what's regulated, what's studied, how it's studied, what's regarded as "proof" in a study, what's stamped as "safe," and what's targeted as "dangerous," and what makes it on to a label and into our bodies, food supply, water supply, and the earth. Medical journals accept drug ads, while their cadre of peer reviewers all share the same medical philosophy, so where's scientific objectivity or health debate?

Instead of helping readers navigate this complex context, the health media offers information uncritically as if it descended from a scientific ivory tower, untainted by economic interest.

But what does it matter what health care we receive when people are more obsessed with the sex life of the ex-governor, Brad Pitt (or whomever) than they are with their own sexual function.

If you think that water tainted with estrogen from HRT meds and libido-lowering antidepressants will enhance sexual function, think again. Wildlife research already reveals that hormonal residues in water have caused feminization of male frogs who now bear eggs.

People get the health reporting they demand. Remember that when you next read that a "government study" refutes any potential health problem caused by all those drugs in our water supply. Even as you sate your curiosity about the next overnight scandal, don't forget that in the absence of "objective proof," the hefty price tags for cleaning-up and addressing the health harm will be your's. After all, it's easier to send the bill to unwitting individuals, than it is to ask drug companies to cover collective damages. Those interested in collective health journalism and action can sign up at: www.health-journalist.com

Comments

[PacificGatePost]

Ms. Levy,

What? Criticizing the media? Wow. Unfortunately the media just feeds us what the "democracy" wants. Sex sells better than drugs in water. What is also missed is the effluent grey water flowing into our streams and rivers containing the drugs that urine flushed out of our systems. These contain everything including cocaine, heroin etc. ....nice.

But sex trumps most news....
http://pacificgatepost.blogspot.com/2008/03/sex-trumps-presidential-race-coverage.html

Keep shaking them up.
James Raider

[CircleofHealth]

Thanks, James, for your sardonic comment.

To me, the most telling words if you will permit a little elision here, are ""democracy" ...sells..." as if democracy were synonymous with free market economics. Although the two have become conflated, their impulses and direction of energies are in fact different.

But of course, for democracy to take the lead, it would require all of us to be aware of our own impulses and make conscious choices, rather than permit ourselves to be pandered to, or swept along like lemmings by marketplace agendas of which we remain ignorant.

[WUC]

The news of pervasive presence of pharmaceutical drugs in the water supply of 41 million people is only yesterday"s news if we let it.

Unpleasant realities that effect individuals such as pharmaceutical drugs in the water are easily buried by inconsequential and voyeuristic distractions.

Is there anything more delicious and or distracting than the righteous falling?

Who wouldn"t be distracted by the Spitzer story? For many of us it"s a soap opera break from our own realities.

Sadly, news of the chemical cocktail that is now our drinking water has been shifted to the back burner for news of a Governor Spitzer"s paid prostitute who has hopes of having a singing career.

But as adults our job to protect children is critical. We must raise our consciousness towards protecting children from the unnecessary and preventable exposures that could compromise their health.

The reality of the issue of our "drugged" water is difficult to fathom. News such as this that either we don"t understand or feel we can solve often falls by the wayside.

There is little entertainment factor when it translates to our own demise. Or even more specifically the demise of our children.

But there is more we can do in our own communities.

We need to put demands on our law -makers to work to reduce both the unnecessary and preventable exposures that are either suspected and or known to cause harm to human health.

Cancer is not to be an expected stage of life.

Yet in this country we have a little less than 50 children every school day that are diagnosed with cancer. About two class room full of children diagnosed every school day with cancer.

We are paying the price for convenience. Never before has our country seen so much cancer and while thankfully the cure is on the rise we are doing little to prevent cancer.

Communities do not understand the environment is the proverbial mirror for human health.

We are in a place where we can and must do things differently. No longer must we tolerate things as basic as food and toys for children that not only may be toxic but also could be linked to cancer.


Individuals must stay in contact with lawmakers and community leaders to work towards raising the bar in their own communities. We can do better for our children in schools and at home. Legal does not mean safe. We must take another look at all the things that take on the natural landscape of our schools and homes and remove those things we either know or suspect to be harmful. When we work to reduce cancer we in turn prevent other illnesses.


Bill Couzens, Founder Lesscancer.org

[CircleofHealth]

Hi, Bill: Thank you for your thoughtful and poignant comments-- which raise the level of conversation to where one would hope it would be on this kind of blog.

I think it's easier for people to get a vicarious thrill from these recent events, than to face the very serious aftermaths of the way we've permitted legislators and regulators to play fast and loose with human and planetary health.

As you point out, children are the hard hit-- but it's important for everyone reading this to understand that no one is invulnerable.

The classic statement when an individual receives a cancer diagnosis is, "Before this, there was nothing wrong with him."

That cliche masks the truth, "there was something wrong, but no one was looking so it was never addressed before the appearance of symptoms or illness."

So learning of the water contamination is a warning to us all, but if we don't heed that warning, we won't be able to act effectively to protect our children and ourselves.

Thank you, Bill for the great work you are doing, and I invite you to join us at the Better Health Campaign. Our goal is to inform people and build a community of health concerned citizens ready to take collection action.

Alison Rose Levy, the Better Health Campaign, www.health-journalist.com

[Centaur]

I said he could use the water, because of the presence of sex hormones, for his defense and he can tell his wife, "honey, the water made me do it". Don't laugh! There is a precedent for this sort of thing. Remember the "twinkie defense" a while back when Dan White shot and killed the mayor of San Francisco.

[DietrichMoody]

He had too many White Wine SPITZERS.

[SaintN]

Where did Spitzer get all that money to spend on expensive call girls? I realize that Spitzer helped his pal Larry Silverstein get a $4.5 bilion payout for his WTC damage claims - did Spitzer get a percentage of that dough???