want some green drugs?

 

It is always interesting to read things that happen in other countries that we know will never happen in the United States because of our unwillingness to be unfriendly to corporations.  The first was Germany’s request to its citizens to cut back on meat.  And then the United Kingdom followed with their own health program that encouraged taking public transportation to your surgery.  And, now there is this….

The European Union requires pharmaceutical companies to analyze the environmental risks of their drugs.  This became a growing concern after the vast amount of data in which various drugs were showing up in water supplies.  With this information, doctors can take environmental factors into consideration prior to prescribing the medication.

Most countries have followed the minimum requirements set forth by the law.  However, some countries have moved many steps further.  For example, Sweden.  

They have managed to create a database that rates pharmaceutical substances in terms of their toxicity, persistence, and bioaccumulation potential based on data given by pharmaceutical manufacturers. It is part of Stockholm’s larger effort to reduce levels of the most environmentally hazardous medicines in wastewater effluent and in surface water by 2011.

The hope is that doctors will pick the greener of two similar options.  The database currently has 1,100 substances and gets 5 million hits per month.  Because of its success, it is expected that the entire European Union will institute the use of the database.

The United States, however, does not assess or classify drugs based on their environmental impact.  What is also interesting is that if an American drug company wants to sell its product in Europe, and invariably they all do, they must comply with providing the impact report.  The transition to bring this live in this country would be cost effective and easy…. half of the work is already done.

However, given that the pharmaceutical industry is one of the largest lobbying industries in D.C., we would guess a database like this would never be implemented in the states.  It would require guidelines being met that they would argue would impact the bottom line.  Politicians would side with the drug makers for the simple reason that they would want to get reelected and their campaign financed.  This country has shown time and time again that we support corporations over people and there is doubt that this would be an exception.

* reference material came from an article published in Environmental Health News

** photo by kasrak, via Flickr

another reason for a water bottle

The most comprehensive survey so far has found a slew of drugs, personal care products, pesticides and other contaminants in drinking water being delivered to millions of people across the United States. None of the compounds appeared at levels thought to be immediately harmful to human health. But the researchers were surprised to find widespread traces of a pesticide, used largely in corn (maize) growing, that has, at higher levels, been linked to cancer and other problems.

Released by Environmental Science and Technology, the team tested 19 utility companies, servicing 28 million people. Pharmaceuticals were found in the water, but they didn’t feel anything was at a harmful level.

Of course, I find it interesting that the number one toxin found in the water was a pesticide used in the farming of corn. Corn is the number one commodity crop of this country, and is more often than not, genetically modified. The most interesting finding about this, however, is what the scientists have concluded: Atrazine could be getting into water through food and drink, the researchers suggest, with, for example, many soft drinks containing corn syrup helping the pesticide to spread through the water-treatment system.

The final conclusion of the study was that if the source water was clean… guess what? The tap water was clean.

“We should be going toward protecting water resources,” says Obolensky. She believes preventing pollutants getting into the water supply in the first place is the most efficient way of tackling contamination — rather than putting money into advanced treatment at drinking water plants.

This week I posted about EcoUsable’s water bottles. I highly recommend these bottles, for many reasons. One reason is their new filtration bottles. You fill the bottle with normal tap water, and because of the tap water in the cap, the water is purified. Based on a reader question, I contacted the company and found out that the company has done some studies to ensure the filter removes pharmaceuticals from the water.

Give your family the gift of good health this season. I did!!

The article can be found HERE.