You Won’t Want to Choke This Down
Ok, so you have your new prescription drug from the doctor, or you have a headache and need some ibuprofen. You get your pills out and grab a glass of water to help you swallow it down. Either way, you know what you are taking and you know the effects it will have on your body. You take it, you feel better and all is well. Well, not anymore.
It’s easy enough to understand how the drugs get into the water. People take their medications and the remainder of what is not absorbed into the body is let out as waste. After it has been flushed down the toilet, the contaminated water ends up in lakes, reservoirs, rivers, and water treatment plants. Since the water treatment plants do not remove drug residue, nor are they obligated to, it ends up coming right back out of your faucet. The federal government has not pushed for any laws to regulate this health hazard, which is even more unsettling.
This is a huge problem. Most of the population of the United States is drinking tap water from municipal water systems. That means that mostly everybody is exposed to medications that they don’t need. On top of that, what will happen when their own medications are mixed with any amount of other unknown medications from their water?
The environmental impact needs to be taken into consideration as well. The fish in these waters have already been impacted. What about the wildlife that drinks from these bodies of water and the people that eat the fish and wildlife exposed to this water?
It has been said that the amount of pharmaceuticals in the tap water is so low that the danger is so little. There may not be huge amounts of hazards from one glass of water. But the long term effects are still unknown. Should we not be able to drink water with no danger at all?
The best way to really know what’s coming out of your faucet is to take full control over it. There are plenty of water filters, water coolers, and reverse osmosis systems out there to clean and treat your water. That includes removing unwanted drug residues. You have running water so you can drink it, cook with it, bath in it, and even swallow your own medications with it. Why risk taking someone else’s meds? Don’t waste time worrying about what’s in your drinking water when there are better options. Your health is in your hands.
