It seems that Prozac is being prescribed so widely in the UK that there’s a buildup in our drinking water:
Traces of the antidepressant Prozac can be found in the nation’s drinking water, it has been revealed.
An Environment Agency report suggests so many people are taking the drug nowadays it is building up in rivers and groundwater.
See also The Observer.
Yeah, well, the doctors seem to be handing it out like sweeties. A couple of years ago, a friend had a period of stress - college work, family stuff, getting on top of her a bit. She went along to the doctor for some advice, and the first thing they suggested was Prozac. She was shocked.
As always with chemistry, you have to ask —- “what does this prove”?
Frequently all it proves is that
(a) molecules are really really tiny, and there are an awful lot of them in even a single piece of matter humans can see and
(b) analytical chemistry can detect astonishingly small numbers of molecules and
© molecules soluble in water quickly disperse out all over the water.
We’ve seen this sort of blindness to chemistry basics before in the US Delaney clause (the one that says that food additives that have the slightest chance whatsoever of causing cancer, even if that means absolutely ridiculous doses, can’t be used, even if, all things considered, such additives would be a better public health policy choice than not using them).
Let’s limit the hysteria this time round till we have real numbers that give some context.
It sounds like something from a JG Ballard novel to me. It’s a metaphorical minefield at any rate, delightfully pregnant with symbolic possibilities.
Look on the bright side. Those poor transgendered fish we hear so much about might get a bit of action now.
my brother went to the doctor to get an ADD diagnosis for his college and mentioned that he was making a lot of mistakes the first day on a construction job, the first time he’s ever done construction, so he left unannounced the first day, feeling anxious. The dude gives him a six month supply of SSRI’s
If only I knew I had an anxiety disorder that time I quit piano class when I felt anxious about facing the teacher because I didn’t practice…
In some places (areas in Norway and Texas, I know) the antidepressants — meaning usually Prozac — have saturated the water so much that it’s detectable in the local fish.
I don’t understand. How does the Prozac get from the pill bottle to the water supply?
Via pee?
“In some places (areas in Norway and Texas, I know) the antidepressants — meaning usually Prozac — have saturated the water so much that it’s detectable in the local fish.”
That’s potentially misleading. Many chemicals tend to accumulate in fish’s bodies as they feed and respirate, so that the concentration in the fish can grow orders of magnitude greater than the concentration in a surrounding area. If Prozac is a bioaccumulative substance, then it may be highly concentrated in fish but still undetectable in the surrounding water.
Tom T’s question isn’t silly. (This is the best reference for Prozac’s mechanism I’ve found so far.) As I understand it, in order to work, the Fluoxetine moleule has to bind to receptors in the pre synaptic cell, which makes it into a different (ie non-Prozac) molecule.
The only way Prozac would get into sewage is if patients were flushing their pills down the toilet, en masse. I think, anyway.
It’s just a silly season scare story.
Dave, I’m not sure what the technical term for it is, but different substances have different rates of uptake into the body and the excess is usually excreted in the urine. Most any drug one takes orally, I think, has a significant portion that is unused and excreted in urine. This is why, for example, the bizarro health fad of drinking one’s own urine can be dangerous—stuff can reach toxic levels easily.
Good thing, I reckon. Might cheer up all those miserable sods you meet on the Tube. Rather more important is the discovery that hormone ingestion from agricultural chemicals in the water have caused fhe average size of the European male penis to, er, shrink over the past fifty years.
Damn! and I thought it was just my imagination.
Keith, good point. I was thinking about the drugs in sport thing, where testers (so I believe) look for the metabolites of illegal substances, rather than the drugs themselves.
Everybody seems to have fallen for this one. It was a “study”—assertion—by a non-scientist that was picked up and repeated until it acquired the patina of truth.
Oops, it turns out a Liberal Democrat MP announced it was so, the Scotsman fell in line, and then it zoomed round the (credulous) internet. I wonder how many will recant of their own volition.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/thisweek/story/0,12977,1280806,00.html
Media reports this week claimed that the Environment Agency had found significant levels of the antidepressant Prozac in drinking water, amounting to what some referred to as “mass medication”. But the Environment Agency says it has never looked at Prozac. Instead, it attributes the work to Norman Baker, a Liberal Democrat MP with a long-standing interest in the issue.
“There is no research that shows Prozac is in water. There’s no analytical data at all,” says Tony Lloyd, who runs the water research programme at the Drinking Water Inspectorate. The drug’s chances of remaining intact through someone’s body, the sewers and then the water treatment system, which is designed to break down persistent pesticides, are negligible, he says. “Prozac is a biodegradable molecule, and while you would expect people to be excreting it and you’d expect it to be in the sewers, you wouldn’t expect it to get through sewage treatment.”
The Drinking Water Inspectorate doesn’t test water for all drugs, but it has looked at whether steroids used in contraceptive pills - considered among the most resilient of drugs - survive the water treatment process. Their equipment, which can detect one nanogramme of drug in a litre, found no traces in drinking water.
——————
http://www.dwi.gov.uk/pressrel/2004/pr0304.shtm
OBSERVER CLAIM THAT THERE ARE TRACES OF PROZAC IN DRINKING WATER IS INCORRECT
Prozac has never been found in our drinking water.
The story comes from a review by the Environment Agency of human pharmaceuticals in the environment. The review did not include drinking water.
The Environment Agency has researched drug residues in sewage effluent and the impact on the receiving river waters. The Agency has reviewed the 500 pharmaceuticals most commonly used in England and Wales and prioritised 12 for monitoring, including one anti-depressant. Traces of 10 pharmaceuticals were found in sewage effluent and 8 in the rivers receiving these effluents. In all cases the concentrations found had no environmental impact. Prozac was not one of the pharmaceuticals found.
River water can be used as a source of drinking water. However such waters receive advanced treatment, which was installed to remove traces of pesticides. Such treatment is equally effective at removing any drug residues that might be present in the raw water, including Prozac.
The Environment Agency’s report and our assessment of the structure of Prozac (Fluoxetine) show it to be biodegradable, and it will therefore be broken down by the sewage treatment process and in watercourses.
When all factors were considered, including biodegradation and dilution, the report predicted that concentrations in the environment were less than the predicted no-effect concentration.
Notes for editors
The Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI) was established in 1989 to regulate public water supplies in England and Wales. DWI is responsible for assessing the quality of drinking water in England and Wales, taking enforcement action if standards are not being met, and appropriate action when water is unfit for human consumption.
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3310754
——————-
The original story:
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3310754
Anti-Depressant ‘Found in Drinking Water’
By Jennifer Sym, PA News
Britons could unwittingly be swallowing traces of anti-depressant Prozac and other drugs in drinking water, according to a report released today.
Environmentalists have labelled the situation “hidden mass medication of the unsuspecting public” after the study states pharmaceutical residues can travel through the sewage system and end up in the “aquatic environment”.
The levels of any such residue is unknown, and the Environment Agency has called on the drugs industry to prove its products are unlikely to cause significant harm to the environment.
According to the study by Norman Baker MP, Liberal Democrat shadow environment secretary, Prozac has been found by the EA to be “both toxic and persistent” and “a substance that could be of potential concern”.
There has been a 166% increase in prescriptions for anti-depressants in England since 1991 – up to 24 million a year.
Mr Baker said: “This looks like a case of hidden mass medication of the unsuspecting public and is potentially a very worrying health issue.
“The Government is quite simply not taking its responsibility to public health seriously.
http://my.webmd.com/content/article/92/101794.htm
WebMD fell for it, evidently not bothering to dig for the source (a fake study).
Everybody seems to have fallen for this one. It was a “study”—assertion—by a non-scientist that was picked up and repeated until it acquired the patina of truth.
Oops, it turns out a Liberal Democrat MP announced it was so, the Scotsman fell in line, and then it zoomed round the (credulous) internet. I wonder how many will recant of their own volition.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/thisweek/story/0,12977,1280806,00.html
Media reports this week claimed that the Environment Agency had found significant levels of the antidepressant Prozac in drinking water, amounting to what some referred to as “mass medication”. But the Environment Agency says it has never looked at Prozac. Instead, it attributes the work to Norman Baker, a Liberal Democrat MP with a long-standing interest in the issue.
“There is no research that shows Prozac is in water. There’s no analytical data at all,” says Tony Lloyd, who runs the water research programme at the Drinking Water Inspectorate. The drug’s chances of remaining intact through someone’s body, the sewers and then the water treatment system, which is designed to break down persistent pesticides, are negligible, he says. “Prozac is a biodegradable molecule, and while you would expect people to be excreting it and you’d expect it to be in the sewers, you wouldn’t expect it to get through sewage treatment.”
The Drinking Water Inspectorate doesn’t test water for all drugs, but it has looked at whether steroids used in contraceptive pills - considered among the most resilient of drugs - survive the water treatment process. Their equipment, which can detect one nanogramme of drug in a litre, found no traces in drinking water.
——————
http://www.dwi.gov.uk/pressrel/2004/pr0304.shtm
OBSERVER CLAIM THAT THERE ARE TRACES OF PROZAC IN DRINKING WATER IS INCORRECT
Prozac has never been found in our drinking water.
The story comes from a review by the Environment Agency of human pharmaceuticals in the environment. The review did not include drinking water.
The Environment Agency has researched drug residues in sewage effluent and the impact on the receiving river waters. The Agency has reviewed the 500 pharmaceuticals most commonly used in England and Wales and prioritised 12 for monitoring, including one anti-depressant. Traces of 10 pharmaceuticals were found in sewage effluent and 8 in the rivers receiving these effluents. In all cases the concentrations found had no environmental impact. Prozac was not one of the pharmaceuticals found.
River water can be used as a source of drinking water. However such waters receive advanced treatment, which was installed to remove traces of pesticides. Such treatment is equally effective at removing any drug residues that might be present in the raw water, including Prozac.
The Environment Agency’s report and our assessment of the structure of Prozac (Fluoxetine) show it to be biodegradable, and it will therefore be broken down by the sewage treatment process and in watercourses.
When all factors were considered, including biodegradation and dilution, the report predicted that concentrations in the environment were less than the predicted no-effect concentration.
Notes for editors
The Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI) was established in 1989 to regulate public water supplies in England and Wales. DWI is responsible for assessing the quality of drinking water in England and Wales, taking enforcement action if standards are not being met, and appropriate action when water is unfit for human consumption.
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3310754
——————-
The original story:
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3310754
Anti-Depressant ‘Found in Drinking Water’
By Jennifer Sym, PA News
Britons could unwittingly be swallowing traces of anti-depressant Prozac and other drugs in drinking water, according to a report released today.
Environmentalists have labelled the situation “hidden mass medication of the unsuspecting public” after the study states pharmaceutical residues can travel through the sewage system and end up in the “aquatic environment”.
The levels of any such residue is unknown, and the Environment Agency has called on the drugs industry to prove its products are unlikely to cause significant harm to the environment.
According to the study by Norman Baker MP, Liberal Democrat shadow environment secretary, Prozac has been found by the EA to be “both toxic and persistent” and “a substance that could be of potential concern”.
There has been a 166% increase in prescriptions for anti-depressants in England since 1991 – up to 24 million a year.
Mr Baker said: “This looks like a case of hidden mass medication of the unsuspecting public and is potentially a very worrying health issue.
“The Government is quite simply not taking its responsibility to public health seriously.
http://my.webmd.com/content/article/92/101794.htm
WebMD fell for it, evidently not bothering to dig for the source (a fake study).
À Gauche
Jeremy Alder
Amaravati
Anggarrgoon
Audhumlan Conspiracy
H.E. Baber
Philip Blosser
Paul Broderick
Matt Brown
Diana Buccafurni
Brandon Butler
Keith Burgess-Jackson
Certain Doubts
David Chalmers
Noam Chomsky
The Conservative Philosopher
Desert Landscapes
Denis Dutton
David Efird
Karl Elliott
David Estlund
Experimental Philosophy
Fake Barn County
Kai von Fintel
Russell Arben Fox
Garden of Forking Paths
Roger Gathman
Michael Green
Scott Hagaman
Helen Habermann
David Hildebrand
John Holbo
Christopher Grau
Jonathan Ichikawa
Tom Irish
Michelle Jenkins
Adam Kotsko
Barry Lam
Language Hat
Language Log
Christian Lee
Brian Leiter
Stephen Lenhart
Clayton Littlejohn
Roderick T. Long
Joshua Macy
Mad Grad
Jonathan Martin
Matthew McGrattan
Marc Moffett
Geoffrey Nunberg
Orange Philosophy
Philosophy Carnival
Philosophy, et cetera
Philosophy of Art
Douglas Portmore
Philosophy from the 617 (moribund)
Jeremy Pierce
Punishment Theory
Geoff Pynn
Timothy Quigley (moribund?)
Conor Roddy
Sappho's Breathing
Anders Schoubye
Wolfgang Schwartz
Scribo
Michael Sevel
Tom Stoneham (moribund)
Adam Swenson
Peter Suber
Eddie Thomas
Joe Ulatowski
Bruce Umbaugh
What is the name ...
Matt Weiner
Will Wilkinson
Jessica Wilson
Young Hegelian
Richard Zach
Psychology
Donyell Coleman
Deborah Frisch
Milt Rosenberg
Tom Stafford
Law
Ann Althouse
Stephen Bainbridge
Jack Balkin
Douglass A. Berman
Francesca Bignami
BlunkettWatch
Jack Bogdanski
Paul L. Caron
Conglomerate
Jeff Cooper
Disability Law
Displacement of Concepts
Wayne Eastman
Eric Fink
Victor Fleischer (on hiatus)
Peter Friedman
Michael Froomkin
Bernard Hibbitts
Walter Hutchens
InstaPundit
Andis Kaulins
Lawmeme
Edward Lee
Karl-Friedrich Lenz
Larry Lessig
Mirror of Justice
Eric Muller
Nathan Oman
Opinio Juris
John Palfrey
Ken Parish
Punishment Theory
Larry Ribstein
The Right Coast
D. Gordon Smith
Lawrence Solum
Peter Tillers
Transatlantic Assembly
Lawrence Velvel
David Wagner
Kim Weatherall
Yale Constitution Society
Tun Yin
History
Blogenspiel
Timothy Burke
Rebunk
Naomi Chana
Chapati Mystery
Cliopatria
Juan Cole
Cranky Professor
Greg Daly
James Davila
Sherman Dorn
Michael Drout
Frog in a Well
Frogs and Ravens
Early Modern Notes
Evan Garcia
George Mason History bloggers
Ghost in the Machine
Rebecca Goetz
Invisible Adjunct (inactive)
Jason Kuznicki
Konrad Mitchell Lawson
Danny Loss
Liberty and Power
Danny Loss
Ether MacAllum Stewart
Pam Mack
Heather Mathews
James Meadway
Medieval Studies
H.D. Miller
Caleb McDaniel
Marc Mulholland
Received Ideas
Renaissance Weblog
Nathaniel Robinson
Jacob Remes (moribund?)
Christopher Sheil
Red Ted
Time Travelling Is Easy
Brian Ulrich
Shana Worthen
Computers/media/communication
Lauren Andreacchi (moribund)
Eric Behrens
Joseph Bosco
Danah Boyd
David Brake
Collin Brooke
Maximilian Dornseif (moribund)
Jeff Erickson
Ed Felten
Lance Fortnow
Louise Ferguson
Anne Galloway
Jason Gallo
Josh Greenberg
Alex Halavais
Sariel Har-Peled
Tracy Kennedy
Tim Lambert
Liz Lawley
Michael O'Foghlu
Jose Luis Orihuela (moribund)
Alex Pang
Sebastian Paquet
Fernando Pereira
Pink Bunny of Battle
Ranting Professors
Jay Rosen
Ken Rufo
Douglas Rushkoff
Vika Safrin
Rob Schaap (Blogorrhoea)
Frank Schaap
Robert A. Stewart
Suresh Venkatasubramanian
Ray Trygstad
Jill Walker
Phil Windley
Siva Vaidahyanathan
Anthropology
Kerim Friedman
Alex Golub
Martijn de Koning
Nicholas Packwood
Geography
Stentor Danielson
Benjamin Heumann
Scott Whitlock
Education
Edward Bilodeau
Jenny D.
Richard Kahn
Progressive Teachers
Kelvin Thompson (defunct?)
Mark Byron
Business administration
Michael Watkins (moribund)
Literature, language, culture
Mike Arnzen
Brandon Barr
Michael Berube
The Blogora
Colin Brayton
John Bruce
Miriam Burstein
Chris Cagle
Jean Chu
Hans Coppens
Tyler Curtain
Cultural Revolution
Terry Dean
Joseph Duemer
Flaschenpost
Kathleen Fitzpatrick
Jonathan Goodwin
Rachael Groner
Alison Hale
Household Opera
Dennis Jerz
Jason Jones
Miriam Jones
Matthew Kirschenbaum
Steven Krause
Lilliputian Lilith
Catherine Liu
John Lovas
Gerald Lucas
Making Contact
Barry Mauer
Erin O'Connor
Print Culture
Clancy Ratcliff
Matthias Rip
A.G. Rud
Amardeep Singh
Steve Shaviro
Thanks ... Zombie
Vera Tobin
Chuck Tryon
University Diaries
Classics
Michael Hendry
David Meadows
Religion
AKM Adam
Ryan Overbey
Telford Work (moribund)
Library Science
Norma Bruce
Music
Kyle Gann
ionarts
Tim Rutherford-Johnson
Greg Sandow
Scott Spiegelberg
Biology/Medicine
Pradeep Atluri
Bloviator
Anthony Cox
Susan Ferrari (moribund)
Amy Greenwood
La Di Da
John M. Lynch
Charles Murtaugh (moribund)
Paul Z. Myers
Respectful of Otters
Josh Rosenau
Universal Acid
Amity Wilczek (moribund)
Theodore Wong (moribund)
Physics/Applied Physics
Trish Amuntrud
Sean Carroll
Jacques Distler
Stephen Hsu
Irascible Professor
Andrew Jaffe
Michael Nielsen
Chad Orzel
String Coffee Table
Math/Statistics
Dead Parrots
Andrew Gelman
Christopher Genovese
Moment, Linger on
Jason Rosenhouse
Vlorbik
Peter Woit
Complex Systems
Petter Holme
Luis Rocha
Cosma Shalizi
Bill Tozier
Chemistry
"Keneth Miles"
Engineering
Zack Amjal
Chris Hall
University Administration
Frank Admissions (moribund?)
Architecture/Urban development
City Comforts (urban planning)
Unfolio
Panchromatica
Earth Sciences
Our Take
Who Knows?
Bitch Ph.D.
Just Tenured
Playing School
Professor Goose
This Academic Life
Other sources of information
Arts and Letters Daily
Boston Review
Imprints
Political Theory Daily Review
Science and Technology Daily Review