Our Health Editor, Rachel Walden, has a very informative post over at Our Bodies Our Blog regarding the discovery that pharmaceuticals are in many water supplies.

My first reaction upon hearing this news was to vow that I would only drink bottled water from now on…but not so fast…

Switching to bottled water is not likely to be a great solution to this problem - many bottled waters on the market are ultimately from a public water supply, and the production, shipment, and disposal of these items creates its own environmental concerns. Although some bottlers use reverse osmosis, which the AP says “removes virtually all pharmaceutical contaminants,” this process is “very expensive for large-scale use and leaves several gallons of polluted water for every one that is made drinkable.” An industry spokesperson commented that, “Bottlers do not typically treat or test for pharmaceuticals.”

Spring and well water are not exempt, either, as Rachel explains in her post.

Further…

The levels detected are very low, much lower than medicinal doses, but the report notes that long-term effects of repeated exposures are not well understood.

So with drugs in our water and hormones in our meat…is there any wonder why it seems like everybody in the world is going crazy?