Contamination: The Stew Effect

This is a follow up to the prior post. These excerpts highlight the complexity of the pharmaceutical contaminant issue. We have the research to prove these compounds are in our water supplies. We don't know at what concentrations they become hazardous to human health. But, perhaps more to the point, we also don't know what potential threats are imposed by these pharmaceuticals in combination.

Many people, including some who think of themselves as environmentally savvy, have a false sense of security about our public water supplies. The fact is most municipal systems were designed to process water for the treatment of pathogens. They were never designed to monitor or treat these contaminants. By the time industrial processors react to the scientific data many millions of people will have already been impacted.

clipped from www.infozine.com What may be more troubling is the mixture of contaminants and how they might interact to cause health problems. “The biggest concern is the stew effect,” says Scott Dye of the Sierra Club’s Water Sentinels program. “Trace amounts of this mixed with trace amounts of that can equal what? We don’t know.” With such contaminants proving elusive to municipal filtration systems, the burden of protection often lies with the end user. But getting traces of birth control and other drugs out of your tap water isn’t so easy. Of the many different kinds of in-home water filtration systems available today, only those employing reverse osmosis have been shown to filter out some drugs. Some makers of activated carbon water filters claim their products catch pharmaceuticals, but independent research has not verified such claims.