Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Pharmaceuticals in Our Water Supply Are Causing Bizarre Mutations to Wildlife

A coworker of mine was sharing with me a story of her associate who just got back from China, where she was studying the effects of pollution on China's water supply. Her findings peaked my interest and I did some research myself and came across this article.

It seems that the levels of pharmaceuticals in the water supply are causing mutations in fish, frogs and birds in our rivers and streams. I had no idea that when you take birth control, most of the hormones are flushed through the body and redistributed into the water supply, and that those hormones can cause male fish to become inter sexual.

"Meanwhile, federal officials continue to study the human health effects of the pharmaceutical compounds found in water known as endocrine disruptors, including possible links to neurological problems in children and increased incidence of some cancers. Federal officials are investigating a wide range of fish health problems in Cheasapeake Bay and its watershed. Several studies of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers have revealed inter-sex fish, a wide range of "abnormalities in which both male and female characteristics are present within the same fish.

The abnormalities include nine male smallmouth bass from the Potomac River near Sharpsburg, Maryland (about 60 miles upstream from Washington) that developed female eggs inside their sex organs. Inter-sex bass were also found in a study three years earlier, after fish kills about 170 miles upstream in the South Branch of the Potomac in Hardy County, West Virginia."


I know we all have to take certain medications to live, but this made me consider finding other holistic or organic remedies whenever possible.

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