Looking at drugs in water

Experts gather in the Triangle to assess a public health question

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK -- Despite rising fear -- and rhetoric -- about the presence of pharmaceuticals in drinking water, there is actually very little evidence of whether there are health risks related to the issue.

That was one main message from 150 researchers and public health experts who huddled at the N.C. Biotechnology Center this week. The two-day conference, the first by a collaborative group of Triangle environmental health experts, was an attempt to answer some of the questions being raised by regulators, scientists and lawmakers.

Drawing on data collected by water treatment plants and federal agencies such as the U.S. Geological Survey, The Associated Press in March reported that treated drinking water in Philadelphia, northern New Jersey, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., tested positive for traces of prescription drugs, including antibiotics, mood stabilizers and sex hormones.

But more and better data is needed to figure out which pharmaceutical chemicals are likely to cause the most harm to the environment and people and how contaminants get into the water.

"We cannot afford to have the whole industry destroyed by a couple of bad actors," said Kenneth Olden, chairman of the newly formed Research Triangle Environmental Health Collaborative. The group counts the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the University of North Carolina, Duke University, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and research institutes in the Triangle among its supporters.

"We want to provide leadership," said Olden, the former director of the NIEHS' toxicology program. "The expertise is here in North Carolina."

"There's been a lot of frustration that we've been talking about this for as long as we have and nothing is done," said Doug Finan of GlaxoSmithKline's environmental health and safety regulatory affairs.

On Tuesday, conference participants came up with several recommendations, which they plan to present to state and federal lawmakers and publish in a peer-reviewed journal:

* The EPA monitors pesticides, herbicides and other chemicals for possible harm. Researchers have long known that pharmaceutical chemicals also show up in the water, but none is on the EPA monitoring list. Lawmakers need to determine which regulatory agency should be in charge of testing water for pharmaceutical chemicals and their byproducts.

"We can't measure everything all the time," said Damian Shea of the N.C. State Department of Biology.

* Consumers need to know what to do with unused medicine. Physicians and pharmacists should be tapped as advocates to prescribe and fill only as much medicine as needed and tell consumers how to dispose properly of leftovers.