Hospitals Flush 250 Million Pounds of Expired Drugs Into Public Sewers Every Year
 

Just when you thought you rid yourself of your own prescriptions, you must be forced to unwillingly consume someone else's.
Hospitals Flush 250 Million Pounds of Expired Drugs Into Public Sewers Every Year
Tuesday, February 10, 2009 by: David Gutierrez, staff writer
Key concepts: Hospitals, Hospital and Antibiotic

Breaking News for Tuesday, February 10, 2009

(NaturalNews) The Associated Press (AP) estimates that hospitals and long-term medical care institutions across the United States are dumping 250 million pounds of pharmacologically active drugs directly into public sewer systems each year.

Because the government does not require health institutions to keep records on their disposal of pharmaceutical products, there are no definitive numbers on the volume of drugs going into the water supply. In order to construct an estimate, AP investigators extrapolated from a survey of 14 urban and rural Minnesota hospitals.

Minnesota's state government strongly encourages health care facilities to keep records of drug disposal.

After adjusting for Minnesota's relatively low rate of prescription drug use and doubling the number to account for the greater waste typically produced by long-term care facilities, the AP concluded that at least 250 million pounds of drug waste and drug-contaminated packaging are thrown away each year. This includes expired or spoiled drugs, leftovers from too-large prescriptions, drugs that are prescribed but not needed, drugs that patients refuse to take or that are halted due to negative side effects, or drugs left over when patients die.

The researchers could not determine what proportion of the 250 million pounds consists of packaging, but experts estimate that it may be roughly half.

The vast majority of this waste is disposed of by flushing it down sinks or toilets, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). A 2006 survey by a water company of 45 long-term care centers found that roughly two-thirds of drug waste was disposed of through the sewer system.

"Obviously, we're flushing them - which is not ideal," said Mary Ludlow of White Oak Pharmacy, a company that works with nursing homes and assisted-living facilities.

This pharmacological waste is much more potent than the drugs that patients flush down their own home toilets, including not only stronger versions of over-the-counter drugs but also highly toxic chemicals like cancer treatments. Tests of hospital sewers in Oslo and Paris have revealed high concentrations of antibiotics, heart drugs, hormones, painkillers skin medication -- in addition to the well-known high concentrations of bacteria, viruses and other pathogens.

Dumping drugs into water is far from harmless, although the exact nature of the danger remains poorly understood. But scientists agree that drugs remain pharmacologically active even after disposal, and can have severe effects on humans and wildlife. Studies of wastewater near hospitals in Europe and the United States have found higher concentrations of antibiotic resistant bacteria and of organisms with genetic mutations similar to those that can cause cancer in humans. Another study on antibiotics in the fluoroquinolone family, including best-seller ciproflaxin, found that these drugs could cause changes to bacterial DNA.

WOW.

Just another example of "we have met the enemy, and he is US."

Betty

Isn't it just a tragedy Betty? When I heard my sister flushed her anti-depressants, i almost cried.

I've seen some documentaries and read books about how there's been a huge (and IMHO, extremely disturbing) increase in the number of hermaphrodite fish in certain areas where pharmaceuticals and runoff from industrial facilities ends up in lakes and rivers. *shudder.*

There's also been a decrease in sperm count and motility, with an increase in more men seeking plastic surgery for...get this...(male) breast reduction. Compound that with the effects of all the estrogen both men and women are being hit with from every angle, and it's a reasonable explanation for why so many folks are having fertility trouble these days, too.

We are absolutely playing with fire, and it is nothing short of terrifying.

Check out The Hundred-Year Lie, by Randal Fitzgerald. It was a quick read, and probably about as good as anhy horror film to scare the living daylights out of ya!

*Sigh.* Where do people think it *goes* when they flush it? Like there's some water fairy out there cleaning it all up and filtering out the nasty stuff. If only! Out of sight, out of mind...until some off-the-wall health problem smacks you or someone you love in the face.

i have heard water quality was affected enough by just normal folks flushing meds.

this is very disturbing and just wrong for so many reasons and on many levels. (thinking about folks who need meds and don't have access)
can't they incinerate it??

They're referring to the xenoestrogens stored in the adipose tissue which is also a contributing factor from conventional animal proteins, plastics, etc...9mainly plastics) this is what they're calling the Gender Benders. So sad really.

Y'know, the more I learn about all this, the more I think the only solution is to colonize Mars and start from scratch!!

Think about it...if this planet were a car, you'd junk it. There's so much wrong, you wouldn't even bother trying to fix it; you'd go get a new one and say good riddance.

:eek::eek: frightening!

This is terrifying. No one should ever wonder where MRSA and all other drug resistant viruses are coming from!

Um? Is this in any way verifiable?

How many hospitals are there accross the country? How many pounds of drugs would each have to flush yearly to reach that figure? A little critical thinking seems called for.

The only way this would even possibly make sense is if they are counting in the volumes of water and saline in which the drugs were diluted. If one gram of a drug is diluted in 1 liter of normal saline solution, then sure, by discarding it, 2.2 pounds have been wasted. But only 0.1% of that volume was a pharmaceutical.

Hospitals are not throwing away as much as this claims in pharmaceuticals. They make significant efforts to control costs by limiting on-hand supplies of medications. At the hospital that I worked at recently, drugs that were issued to nurses for a given patient were returned to the pharmacy if unopened and then reprocessed so that they could be issued to other patients. That is pretty much a standard practice. Hospitals do waste many things, but drugs cost a lot of money, and they are conserved as much as possible.

For reference, with right around 5000 US hospitals, each would have to discard 50,000 pounds of expired drugs per year. That is just under 1,000 pounds per week. The entire stock of a community hospital's pharmacy probably weighs considerably less than 1,000 pounds at any given time, since that is about a 120 day supply* for a medium to large facility. Packaging and dilution discounted, obviously.

*(Based on estimate of 500 beds x 20 meds per patient per day x 1 gram per dose (most doses are much smaller) x all meds given 4 times per day. 450 grams per pound.)

This still freaks me out. My husband has a violent allergy to Bactrim.

I'd hate to think what would happen if he got water with a trace amount of Bactrim in it. :eek:

any ampount is frightening isn't it? Not only us but for our sea creature friends.

You know what we should do? Is recycle that human sludge as fertilizer. And grow vegetables in it. Per the FDA.



:stars::stars::stars::stars::stars::stars::stars:

Absolutely frightening ~ Americans are so over medicated it isn't funny :cry:

I have a sea creature friend that lives near your sister, my sea creature friend has a great new outlook on life these days. Tell you sister thanks!

My niece is being forced by the city to hook up to city water even though she has a perfectly good-functioning well that they have used for years. This will cost her $16,000. Her husband manages a car dealership. Money is very tight for them right now because of the economy. Please pray for them. Fawn: do you recommend water filters for people with city water? We have well water but because of all the farm land and the high number of people with crohns disease in our area, I have been thinking of getting one also.

We have city water that tastes chlorinated - I hate it so I bought a Brita Water Pitcher for my fridge. I hope it's making a difference.

Ah yes JBo! I know your friend. He has 3 eyes and boobs!

Antibiotics in the soil would destroy the beneficial organisms.

I read "Organic Soil Management" when I have trouble sleeping. :laugh:

I am bumping this up as I too am interested in any opinions about water filtration. Does the Britta type filtration of (bad) city water do much good? I've heard about more sophisticated systems that filter more househould water than just that which we drink. Is that type of system over kill (especially in a tight $$ economy)?

DG

IMHO, get the best water filtration you can afford. Depending on where you are, you can't even trust well water anymore.

Disgusting! And we all ingest this cr@p. We filter our water but I don't think the filtration system would remove these. Reverse osmosis perhaps?

Just a quick edit to put this big load of BS in perspective:

Yeah, forgive me if I'm not impressed.

I hope I understand your point correctly... Did this quote actually come from fawn?!? I went back and reread the entire thread - couldn't find it.

I think you are comparing apples and oranges here. Presence of medication in our water supply has been proven by actual scientific testing.

No, I edited the OP to make a point:
Would anyone here take that article seriously for more than 1 second?

(Feel free to replace the premise with whatever you want -- it would still be torn to shreds.)

Right you are and no I didn't call it bs, joy did.

Oh, yes, I know, we are on the same page here. I totally agree with you. For someone to discount this serious problem is beyond my understanding. I was just referring to the post that didn't make sense to me. that's why I told Joy-FL that I went back and read through that thread and couldn't find support for her or his statement anywhere.