Can I Offer You A Bit Of Tranquilizer With Your Water?

Health care is expensive. Health insurance is expensive. Prescription drugs are expensive (sometimes even when you’re already paying for expensive health insurance).

But none of these things are so expensive that we’re willing to slurp down another person’s leftover anti-convulsants, tranquilizers, and Lord only knows what else.

Back in March, tests were conducted to determine what kinds of drugs were in our drinking water, what level of those drugs was in our drinking water, and how many people had been affected by the drugs in our drinking water (I briefly touched on this during a March Saturday Sanity). At the time, researchers thought 41 million people had been affected; however, continued tests have shown that at least 46 million people have been affected (information regarding the kinds of drugs – drugs like anti-convulsants, tranquilizers, medication for high cholesterol, and hormones – and the amount of those drugs seems to be about the same).

And here those five million thought they’d slid by.

Exact information about the risk of chugging down another person’s prescription medication for – well, as long as you drink contaminated water – is still unknown. The word is that the traces are so faint that the risks are minimal to zilch, but researchers do affirm that even faint traces are harming wildlife like frogs and fish, as well as screwing up human cells in laboratories.

The good news is that if you live in Seattle, Phoenix, or Boston, you’re in the clear. These cities tested negative for drugs. (Five other cities are supposedly clean, too, but the article didn’t tell me which ones.)

The bad news is that most American cities haven’t even tested yet – including New York.

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Image: SXC