Stay calm everyone, there's Prozac in the drinking water

Mark Townsend
Sunday August 8, 2004
The Observer

It should make us happy, but environmentalists are deeply alarmed: Prozac, the anti-depression drug, is being taken in such large quantities that it can now be found in Britain's drinking water.
Environmentalists are calling for an urgent investigation into the revelations, describing the build-up of the antidepressant as 'hidden mass medication'. The Environment Agency has revealed that Prozac is building up both in river systems and groundwater used for drinking supplies.

The government's chief environment watchdog recently held a series of meetings with the pharmaceutical industry to discuss any repercussions for human health or the ecosystem.

The discovery raises fresh fears that GPs are overprescribing Prozac, Britain's antidepressant of choice. In the decade up to 2001, overall prescriptions of antidepressants rose from nine million to 24 million a year.

A recent report by the Environment Agency concluded Prozac could be potentially toxic in the water table and said the drug was a 'potential concern'.

However, the precise quantity of Prozac in the nation's water supplies remains unknown. The government's Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI) said Prozac was likely to be found in a considerably 'watered down' form that was unlikely to pose a health risk.

Dr Andy Croxford, the Environment's Agency's policy manager for pesticides, told The Observer: 'We need to determine the effects of this low-level, almost continuous discharge.'

Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrat's environment spokesman, said the revelations exposed a failing by the government on an important public health issue. He added that the public should be told if they were inadvertently taking drugs like Prozac.

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'This looks like a case of hidden mass medication upon the unsuspecting public,' Baker said. 'It is alarming that there is no monitoring of levels of Prozac and other pharmacy residues in our drinking water.'

Experts say that Prozac finds its way into rivers and water systems from treated sewage water. Some believe the drugs could affect their reproductive ability.

European studies have also expressed disquiet over the impact of pharmaceuticals building up in the environment, warning that an effect on wildlife and human health 'cannot be excluded'.

'It is extremely unlikely that there is a risk, as such drugs are excreted in very low concentrations,' a DWI spokesman said. 'Advanced treatment processes installed for pesticide removal are effective in removing drug residues,' he added.

the news articles above are a simple way of finding out
if the medication is kicking in...

if there are no huge reactions to these stories

as in lobby groups banding together and fighting this
mass medication, via calling for an independant public enquiry

they will simply know
whether they have to up the dosage or not

Call now to stop the indemnity water companies seek
over Water flouridation, and general water quality
as in purity...


That's right! These private companies want to be able to
legally pass the buck and not be held liable for poisoning
the population.

what next? Police not liable for Rascism and abuse?
Army not laible for torture...and murder?

the legislation is a blueprint for turning the planet into
a human right abuse free for all...

Interestingly the Mercury [thermasil] in Whooping cough
vaccines is to be phased out...

why?

People power!

read the BBC article again
Is this not proof that the Prozac IS working!!!

I'm pretty sure that SSSI drugs cannot 'be watered down'
i will do some research and check it out though

love
cw

after a brief search i found that saline is used to dilute most SSRI's
selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors
[excuse misspelt SSSI above! bloody keyboard]

Fluoxetine
Brand name(s): Prozac; Sarafem

 http://www.antidepressantsfacts.com/fluoxetine3.htm

 http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/medmaster/a689006.html


so flushing it into the sea i guess would dilute the overall amounts

but what if the drug was coming into
the 'purer' supply via the water treatment preocess?

via toxic dumping? Drug companies waste products via
Run off?


Pharmaceutical drugs and personal care products increasingly are found in water
systems all over the world. Few or no discharge standards or monitoring systems
currently exist to regulate these items because the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
has, in the past, focused on the direct impacts of pharmaceuticals on humans rather
than after-use effects on the environment. Human waste has not been considered a
toxic substance per se. As large volumes of these human-made chemicals enter the
water supply on a continual and daily basis, effects can build up over time, obscuring
the true ultimate toxicity and volatility of these compounds.
 http://66.102.11.104/search?q=cache:VrAJLFKj8uIJ:www.campusecology.wsu.edu/te_review_of_ppcps.pdf+FLUOXETINE+in+water+supply&hl=en



Researchers at Baylor University have found fluoxetine hydrochloride, the active ingredient in the antidepressant Prozac, in in a Denton County, Texas creek, raising concerns about the welfare of the fish and the people who eat them, according to the Ft. Worth Star Telegram (see also the Houston Chronicle and a silly Reuters article). The chemical most likely is coming from a city of Denton wastewater treatment plant, which discharges into Pecan Creek and flows into Lewisville Lake, which supplies drinking water to the cities of Dallas, Denton and Lewisville.

Bryan Brooks, a Baylor toxicologist who led the study, said the fluoxetine, and a metabolized compound similar to it, most likely made their way into the water systems from the urine of users or through people flushing Prozac down the toilet. The waste water facility is not equipped to remove the compounds, which then make their way into the blue gills, and perhaps other aquatic life. "If we release something in the environment, we need to understand what will happen to it," Brooks said.

[snip]

It's very early, but the implications are potentially serious," said Richard Browning, senior manager of the Trinity River Association's planning and environmental management division. "If they come out with a clear connection, then everybody will be looking at how to get it out of the water. Then the regulations would flow very quickly."

 http://eces.org/articles/000238.php

 http://www.biopsychiatry.com/fluoxetine/fishprozac.html

and they're SSRI drugs. (not SSSI) I read this thinking about how I grew up in Ireland ingesting flouride and bacteria as did anyone who grew up in the Basque.
did we complain bitterly? - not enough.
Still I've never had a filling in my life.
Then I thought about the US and it's arsenic problem.
Then I thought about the SSRI family of drugs, as did the previous commentator, and I'm wondering is it possible to discern the Prozac form from say for example floroxine or MDMA or for that matter ADMA and any one of the hundreds of other terribly popular drugs.
I doubt it is possible, so, all you need know is that you Brits have taken and still take an awful lot of drugs, and they now show up in the water.

It's not really a cause for bitter complaint though.
Wait till the Viagra hits detectable levels.
Then you'll have a profound social crises I suppose.

Well thank you for that enlightenment!

SSRIs and MDMA

serotonin affectors

legal/illegal
strange differentiations

serious question :
if a drug is watered down
what is it's basest level?

does it just dissolve?
dissappear?

see the story of the fish in texas
displaying differing behavior patterns

is it just the prozac?
Is it all a cocktail in the eco system?
the chemical waste, the bio-spillage
in our shit ...our piss...in our brains

Are we the experiment?

The stories first posted on this thread are emotive.
I think this is deliberate.

as if it is our fault that we suffer from depression.
our fault that Major drug companies
try out untested drugs on the population...see:
 http://aras.ab.ca/articles/house/thehouse.html
 http://www.nypress.com/17/28/news&columns/LiamScheff.cfm

and therefore our fault that we end up with this 'all in the system'
because we take drugs...

also where the hell did MDMA come from?
was/ is it a social experiment?
was it like LSD?

Albert Hoffmans discovery was first synthesized By Sandoz [he worked for them]
Bought in bulk by the CIA , treated with radiological markers
and disseminated into beat/'lowlife' culture...
Both Allen Ginsberg and Tim Leary did their first trips in a CIA office...
 http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/lsd/marks.htm

The BIG picture is FAR more scary

question:
Is it Pandoras Box?
[IE: out of their control...]
help run away quickly...or
sit back enjoy the ride enjoy those genetic changes

or is it a disease industry?
[IE: In their total control]

Planet Earth is Aushwitz times a million
or 40 million and rising if you count laborotory AIDS
 http://www.whale.to/m/hiv.html

come on! a couple of E pills (MDMA) a month isn't exactly going to kill you.

just make sure you take loads of Vit C and E before hand (anti-oxidants), take a 5HTP pill before (keep 5HT levels high), and a Prozac pill couple of hours after the rush (prozac competes against E, effectively inhibits the drug and prevents [furthur] damage - MDMA has a half-life of ~7 hours).

 http://www.mdma.net/

5HTP, Health shop
Prozac, Internet import

its right wing facism that dictates that people are too stupid to be trusted with their own liberty!

the people should be informed, not dictated too.

Most of the good stuff is in Afghanistan

Go on, off you trot...

what too dangerous,


well maybe you should just rely on good ole CIA
to get them for you...

what don't take heroin?


what about some coke...
whoops ditto...this time it's South / Central America

maybe you should get some of that
genetically modified weed down you

Lab rat


i am not against free will ...or getting off your nut...

call for the legalization and immediate
testing for safe drug use ...NOW!

now should we test on Monkeys or labradors?
hmmmm...

if people want to self medicate...

then it's up to them

if they know the risks.

intersting article in Mixmag about Bushes war on clubs...
----------------------
"In 2001 The drug enforcement agency used an 80's crack house statute
to go after a concert venue, new orleans stste palace theatre, after a teenage overdose.
The law was used to arrest the clubs owners and promoters, who were said to knowingly and intentionally allow drug use to take place.

The proof? Chill out rooms, on-site ambulances, and over priced bottles of water.
A plea agreement was thrashed out between the clubs lawyers and prosecutors, and the promoters were fined $100,000. Surgical masks, glow sticks, and pacifiiers, were banned from the club.

The following year Bush's government produced the RAVE act
[Reducing Americans vulnerability to Ecstacy]

Aimed at stamping out club drugs like ecstacy and GBH, the RAVE act makes it easier for proscecuters to nail promoters than the crack house statute. The act was eased into place with testimony before congress which claimed that ecstacy caused permanent brain damage,
and an undercover operative reporting that "young adults take ecsatcyanf gyrate oddly to
pulsating 'techno' music" at raves. "

- end of magazine quote

------------------------
doesn't this seem a little hypocritical?

Bush is enforcing mandatory mental illness screening for EVERY schoolkid
in the sinister attempt to get as many as possible on Ritalin [SSRI] for his buddies at Phizer etc...

while MDMA and it's users and the club that rightly claims no responsibility are treated like this...!

to clarify
I am against the mass dosing of the public with ANY form of substance.
it is an act of barbarity.

if you feel you could benefit from this [al be it....because you already medicate yourself]

it doesn't make this pharmacological warfare right, does it?

I am with your right to party, live dance and do what the fuck you wanna do!

the are distinctions that have to be made...

we can stand together. Peace
Captain Wardrobe

Alongside efforts to reduce the supply and demand
of illegal drugs, the federal government has begun pursuing a new tactic, one
that expands the drug war battlefield from the Columbian coca farms and the
Middle Eastern poppy fields, to a new terrain directly inside the bodies and
brains of drug users.

In this new extension of the drug war, termed “pharmacotherapy,” the
federal government is partnering with large and small pharmaceutical companies
to develop a new breed of pharmaceutical drugs designed to padlock
the brains of drug users so that even if a person ingests an illegal drug, the
drug will be intercepted within the blood stream or otherwise blocked from
entering the brain. The American government’s hope is that demand for illegal
drugs can be reduced, in part, by chemically eliminating the very desire to
use an illegal drug.