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Drugs in your drinking water
By Dr. William Campbell Douglass on 12/11/2009
The contamination of our water supply is the biggest public health crisis that no one will talk about – probably because at least some of that poison is put in on purpose.
The latest incident starts out innocently enough: Researchers in Washington studying the Puget Sound have spices in the water. If you're a salmon there, you may have even noticed a distinct vanilla flavor these days.
But these fish aren't getting some kind of treat. They're getting a bi-product of human waste, because everything we eat and excrete is making it right back out into the environment.
Then, it goes into the ground water... and eventually into your tap water.
Think about that next time you fill your drinking glass or coffee pot.
Sure, you're probably thinking, "Dr. Douglass is just being paranoid. This water is treated and filtered, right?"
Right – and if you could see how ineffective this process is, you'd never touch the faucet again. And vanilla flavoring is the least of your worries.
In Spain, researchers recently ran 24 water samples at a treatment plant –AFTER the H20 underwent supposedly rigorous filtering. Twenty-two of those samples tested positive for cocaine byproducts.
In Italy, researchers say 44 pounds of pharmaceuticals flow down the Po River each day.
Think it's better here? Stop reading now and you can keep thinking that.
Antibiotics, painkillers, sunscreen, hormones, drugs and so much more are routinely found in U.S. waters. In some parts of our nation, male fish are growing female parts because they're literally swimming in hormones.
Most cities don't even bother testing for meds in the drinking water. When they do, they inevitably find them – pharmaceuticals have been found in the drinking water of 51 million U.S. homes. If we tested everywhere, I'm sure we'd find them everywhere.
Tests have even shown that American drinking water is contaminated with perchlorate – the chemical used to make rocket fuel. Still feel like drinking eight glasses a day of this stuff?
And that's not all! Take a look at this shocking video out of Fort Lupton, Colorado. A natural gas leak there has contaminated the water supply. They can actually set fire to the water as it comes out of the faucet!
Remember, natural gas is completely odorless – that rotten- egg smell is added later to help detect leaks. So if this stuff is getting into the water supply because of sloppy drilling practices at the source, you wouldn't know unless you had the water tested... or set it on fire.
All this and I haven't even touched on the dangerous noxious chemicals our own government proudly adds to the water, junk like fluoride and chlorine.
There's only one truly effective way to block most of these poisons – a reverse osmosis filter, installed where the water enters your home.
If you want to know more about the problems with our water and how to protect your family, read the September issue of The Douglass Report. You'll never look at your sink the same way again.
And if you just want to stop drinking H2O altogether, that's fine too – keep reading to learn more.
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William Campbell Douglass I.I., M.D. has been called "the conscience of modern medicine."
You can sign up for his "Daily Dose" at DouglassReport.com.
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Comments
mort20
Well, water become polluted because of inconsiderate human deed. And more than running out of clean water, we will run out of water itself. Swamps, lakes, rivers and other bodies of water will run dry if we still don't know how to conserve and preserve our natural resources.
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Water-wise
Drugs and chemical treatments added to or left in drinking water must be looked at as a crime. The trouble is, when government is in it up to their earholes they do not want to be caught red-handed causing injury to the community. For example in Geelong, Australia, the most common chemical treatment added is toxic hydrofluorosilicic acid waste from the local fertilizer factory. Too toxic to leave the factory via the chimney or the fertilizer, it now gets purchased by our government to be disposed of into the drinking water. Many people had years ago left the nearby cities of Melbourne, Bacchus Marsh and Bendigo etc and come to Geelong due to skin rashes, asthma, digestive pain from the fluoridated water in their former homes. Now Geelong has been fluoridated they became severely ill once again. Pointing out the facts to government is like accusing an irrational toddler of pinching biscuits! They just aggressively lie that they don't know of such side effects at all. The poor patients suffering the side effects have found their doctors and dentists are forced to keep quiet about telling the truth as well. Anyone who has noticed fluoride side effects can fill out a research Health Survey here: http://www.baff.org.au/
So drugs and chemical treatments added to water must be the long term plan from governments that have totally lost touch with the communities they used to serve. So just who are they starting to obey orders from now?
Natazia
The link from kitchen or bathroom to coast can also grease the path for some rather unsavory substances, such as illegal drugs, experts have discovered. After a person has taken drugs such as cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and ecstasy, active byproducts of these substances are released into the sewage stream through that person's urine and feces.
These byproducts, or metabolites, are often not completely removed during the sewage-treatment process, at least in Europe, said Sara Castiglioni of the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research in Milan, Italy. That means the drug-tainted wastewater can enter groundwater and surface water, which are collectively the major sources of drinking water for most people.
In a new review study, Castiglioni and colleague Ettore Zuccato found that illegal drugs have become 'widespread' in surface water in some of Europe's populated areas.
For instance, in a 2008 study scientists discovered a byproduct of cocaine in 22 of 24 samples of drinking water at a Spanish water-treatment plant, despite a rigorous filtering and treatment process.
Chris W
I live in the UK and everyone I know says their memory is getting worse.
About 20-30 years ago, the press ran stories that there were so many women taking the Pill that oestrogen had been found in rivers (enough to change the sex of fish) and subsequently the drinking water. A few years later they said the same about Prozac.
Then some areas started adding fluoride to the drinking water "to improve our teeth". Yet the majority of our toothpastes include fluoride.
Recently the government said that so many people were taking cocaine most British bank notes were impregnated with it (presumably from "snorting). But no mention of that in the drinking water. I read somewhere they don't even test the water for drugs.
And why wouild they? A slightly drugged nation is easier to control. A Bulgarian friend says her people have a slave-like mentality.
Dave
Water pollution is indeed an issue to be addressed. Not for the fish itself an unpleasant phenomenon, but for humans as end-consumers an area of serious concern.
I monitor for several years now the life of salmon and can confirm the negative impact on the quality and thus on our very health.
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