Old Drugs? We End Up Drinking Them
What should we do with old prescription medicines? The pharmacy won’t take them back, and most charities won’t take them either. Most people flush them down the toilet, not realizing that they end up in the water we drink, so that we’re “taking” lots of medicines that haven’t been prescribed for us.
Water treatment processes remove dangerous bacteria but aren’t able to remove dissolved medicines. Scientists say that the water in many cities is contaminated with estrogen from the urine of women on replacement hormones and birth control pills. But we’re not only drinking estrogen–The U.S. Geological Survey has found traces of painkillers, antidepressants, blood-pressure medicines and more in water samples from 30 different states.
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