EPA finds chemicals and pharmaceuticals in fish across the US

The now organically acceptable treated sewage disperses along the downstream current and fish benefit from the added nutrient, grasses are more plentiful and the food chain thrives, except that, in the treated sewage, there is all the pharmaceutical stuff our bodies did not metabolize. All the blood pressure medicine and birth control hormones, cholesterol lowering drugs, allergy medicines, and behavior drugs used to treat bipolar disorder and depression.

The EPA captured fish down stream from waste water treatment facilities in Orlando, as well as in Chicago, Dallas, Phoenix and Philadelphia. The EPA then researched and exposed 24 pharmaceuticals that found their way into the fish flesh. They also tested for industrial elements like soaps and fragrances, that make their way into waste water, which was also found.

Some time ago the AP reported that over 46 million citizens are at risk from trace amounts of pharmaceuticals in drinking water. The EPA is supposed to be launching a population study on the long term effects of imbibing trace levels of random drugs. [image-1]

The levels of drugs and industrial chemicals in the fish are not high; this, like all environmental dangers is going to be understood in the long term. We can identify that the drugs are there and we can say with some confidence that the drugs at that level are not going to kill you, and for sure one meal of fish with trace amounts of birth control hormones is not going to make a person sterile; but the long term consequence of eating drug polluted fish, drinking drug polluted water, and the effect the drugs will have on the breeding cycles and growth of the fish, is a major concern.

Live Well.