[Pharmwaste] What's in the Water We Drink - long article about DC's water

Thu Jul 26 15:27:17 EDT 2012

Fred, I am smarter than you so I hope this helps.
Paracelsus was wrong! Traditional toxicology does not take into account
chemicals that are designed to alter DNA, such as a Chemotherapy drugs like
Cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin and fluorouracil. The way Cytotoxic chemicals
work to cure cancer is to "burn" the gene on the end of a chromosome so when
the RNA start to rebuild the helix thy do not fit (like sticking play dough
in a Lego) the cancer cell is mutated and is no longer a cancer cell, most
die but some live on as the altered cell (cancer or birth defect) and split
and split and split, think of it as a chemical germ. 30% of breast cancer
survivors develop a secondary cancer from the treatment and lookup
"cyclophosphamide Baby".
Ask a pharmacist if they have ever made a drug in a nano-gram per liter, or
even a pico-gram per liter, and what effect it had on the patient. Throw
away your textbooks on toxicology.
A couple of problems with the drugs is that they work on all cells not just
cancer but rapidly dividing cells such as hair and skin cells and the most
rapidly dividing cells, a child being born. The drugs work on a molecular
level that is why OSHA has a ZERO exposure limit for cytotoxins. 
Cytotoxic drugs are made by guys in spacesuits (MERCK band 5) prepared in
million dollar rooms inside million dollar rooms in the pharmacy. The drug
is then inject  into the patient and he is sent home to his family. Have you
ever taken a vitamin and a couple hours later your urine looks like you ate
your highlighter, that is the drug passing through your body unaltered. What
if that drug was Cyclophosphamide (EPA U058) 25% passes unaltered in 24
hours (FDA) that is approximately 1000 ppm. The major metabolite is Acrolein
(EPA P003). The cytotoxic chemicals are being poured down the toilet, into a
septic system and into our drinking water. 
The good news is that there are less than 25 drugs that are dangerous after
they pass through a person, and it can be controlled easily. We just need to
accept that drugs are chemicals too and treating the empty vial of
cyclophosphamide as a chemical weapon (as it is) does not relieve ourselves
of the moral obligation to protect the future generations from chemicals
engineered as chemical weapons.
We have to stop talking about shampoo and sunscreen in the same sentence as
cytotoxic chemotherapy drugs, the same rules do not apply.
I have worked as a chemist in the hazardous waste disposal business for 25
years and I can't safely send an employee into a cancer center to clean a
toilet. 

Jim Mullowney
Pharma-cycle.com

-----Original Message-----
From: pharmwaste-bounces at lists.dep.state.fl.us
[mailto:pharmwaste-bounces at lists.dep.state.fl.us] On Behalf Of Fredrick L.
Miller
Sent: Thursday, July 26, 2012 2:26 PM
To: pharmwaste at lists.dep.state.fl.us
Subject: RE: [Pharmwaste] What's in the Water We Drink - long article about
DC's water

"evidence suggests that the same contaminants that caused massive fish kills
and deformities in recent years are linked to increases in obesity,
diabetes, autism, cancer, and other disorders-and that medications and
products we use every day might contribute to the problem"

I'm hoping someone way smarter than me in the field of toxicology can help
me with a question.

We've heard since the time of Paracelsus "the dose makes the poison" yet we
accept statements such as the one above at face value.  How is it consuming
such dilute levels of substances can cause all these ills while consuming
much higher concentrations is considered therapeutic?  Shouldn't we be much
more concerned about consuming and applying the prescriptions, potions,
lotions, and neat substances in full strength?  After all, that "witch's
brew" comes from our home to begin with.  We dose ourselves there with
little to no regard for interaction.  There is no agency watching out for
our safety when it comes to considering what happens when we mix our
medications with our shampoos, perfumes, household cleaners, plasticizers,
fuels, etc. in the home yet we're all wrapped around the axle about a few
PPT of the stuff in our drinking water.  Isn't that a bit like having our
cart before our horse?

Fred

P.s. I get that the fish and frogs can't protect themselves but using the
drinking water concentrations as the lead-off for the story just strikes me
as sensationalism and fearmongering.

-----Original Message-----
From: pharmwaste-bounces at lists.dep.state.fl.us
[mailto:pharmwaste-bounces at lists.dep.state.fl.us] On Behalf Of Tenace,
Laurie
Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2012 4:57 AM
To: pharmwaste at lists.dep.state.fl.us
Subject: [Pharmwaste] What's in the Water We Drink - long article about DC's
water

Much more at the link.

http://www.washingtonian.com/articles/people/whats-in-the-water-we-drink-2/

Washington's tap water, most of which comes from the Potomac River, meets or
exceeds federal water-quality standards. But new pollutants have emerged
that are not removed by current water-purification technology. Evidence
suggests that the same contaminants that caused massive fish kills and
deformities in recent years are linked to increases in obesity, diabetes,
autism, cancer, and other disorders-and that medications and products we use
every day might contribute to the problem.

Of all the natural resources in the Washington area, none is more important
than the potomac river. Besides the beauty and recreation it provides, the
area pulls nearly 400 million gallons of water a day out of it-about 90
percent of our drinking water.

In some ways, the Potomac is cleaner today than it was 40 or 50 years ago.
Back then, people were warned not to swim in the river or eat fish from it;
a tetanus vaccination was recommended for anyone who did swim there. On many
days, you could smell the Potomac before you saw it.

Improvements in wastewater treatment and conservation upgraded the water
quality of the river, which wends its way nearly 500 miles from its origin
in the Appalachian Plateau to Point Lookout, Maryland, where it empties into
the Chesapeake Bay. These efforts helped reduce major pollutants-such as
nitrogen and phosphorous from fertilizers, pesticides, and soaps-that fed
algae, rootless plant-like organisms that grow in sunlit water. Algae
blooms-rapid accumulations of microscopic algae in water that can stretch
for miles-deplete the water of oxygen and release harmful toxins. They can
virtually destroy a river if left to grow unchecked.

Despite this progress, the river is not "clean." In 2011, the Potomac
Conservancy, an organization that monitors the river, gave the Potomac a
grade of D, a drop from the D-plus the organization assigned it in 2007. The
conservancy noted that more than a third of the estimated 10,000 stream
miles in the Potomac watershed are threatened or impaired.

Even so, the drinking water in the Washington area is closely monitored and
meets or exceeds every Environmental Protection Agency water-quality
standard. But as some of the old pollutants have been removed from the
river, new ones have emerged that are not removed by current technology and
may be harmful to human health, especially for the very young.

This emerging class of contaminants, called endocrine-disrupting compounds
(EDCs), a variety of natural and manmade chemicals from many sources, first
came to light in a dramatic way in the summer and fall of 2002 with massive
fish kills along the south branch of the Potomac River in West Virginia,
about 200 miles upstream from DC. Some of the contaminants are new, and
others have been discovered recently because new measuring techniques permit
scientists to identify EDCs in minute quantities.

Says Luke Iwanowicz, a scientist with the US Geological Survey: "Many of
these emerging contaminants have been off our radar until now, mostly
because we did not have the ability to detect them."

Jeff Kelble ran a fishing-guide business on the Shenandoah River, long
considered one of the nation's great fishing rivers, especially for
smallmouth bass. The Shenandoah empties into the Potomac at Harpers Ferry,
West Virginia. Kelble remembers when fish were so plentiful that they fought
over his lures-it wasn't uncommon for the sport fishermen he guided to catch
50 to 60 fish in a day, all of which Kelble released back into the river.

That changed in the last week of March 2004, when Kelble learned that fish
kills had struck the north fork of the Shenandoah. From his boat, when the
murky spring water was clear enough, Kelble could see redbreast sunfish and
smallmouth bass lying motionless on the riverbed.

Kelble didn't know what to make of the scene. Had a poison been dumped into
the river? Was this fish kill related to the kills that had struck the south
branch of the Potomac in 2002 and 2003? Had a large quantity of milk somehow
found its way into the water from dairy farms along the riverbank? Milk has
a voracious appetite for oxygen and might have robbed the river of enough to
kill the fish, but when the river's oxygen levels were measured, they were
normal.

Kelble tried catching fish but had little luck. Finally, he hooked a
smallmouth bass.

"We were excited at first," Kelble says, "but when we lifted the fish out of
the water, we saw it was covered with red sores that looked like cigar
burns, and it had lost many of its scales. I'd never seen anything like it.
I have an engineering degree-I'm not a biologist-and I had no idea what was
wrong. We caught a few other fish, and almost all had similar sores on
them." Kelble caught more fish. "Between 50 and 60 percent of the fish had
lesions," he says.

Kelble, now a conservationist with Potomac Riverkeeper-a nonprofit that
monitors river quality throughout the four-state Potomac watershed-estimates
that in 2004 and 2005, 80 percent of the adult smallmouth-bass population
was wiped out in the Shenandoah River. The bass are back, Kelble says, but
he still sees sick fish.

Vicki Blazer, a fish pathologist with the US Geological Survey (USGS), had
the job of finding the cause of the fish kills. Working out of
Kearneysville, West Virginia, Blazer led a team onto the rivers to collect
dead and dying fish. Electroshocks in the water stunned the fish and brought
them to the surface, where Blazer's group netted them and put them into
water buckets to which an anesthetic was added.

As Blazer dissected scores of smallmouth bass, she was surprised to find
that many of the males had characteristics of both sexes. Some 80 percent of
the male fish had oocytes-precursors of egg cells produced by females-in
their testes, a condition known as intersex.

Intersex among some species of fish is not unheard of but, Blazer says, "you
just don't see this intersex phenomenon with bass."

Ed Merrifield, president of Potomac Riverkeeper, calls the river fish kills
"the canary in the coal mine."

Our region is not alone. Fish die-offs have been reported in waterways
throughout the United States. Last September, thousands of white bass died
in the Arkansas River with no clear explanation. Beginning in 2008, fish
kills and fish with lesions were seen in the upper James River, and lesions
were seen on the Jackson and Cowpasture rivers in Virginia as well. Intersex
fish also have turned up in the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River.

Laurie Tenace
Environmental Specialist III
Waste Reduction Section
Florida Department of Environmental Protection
2600 Blair Stone Rd., MS 4555
Tallahassee FL 32399-2400
P: 850.245.8759
F: 850.245.8811
Laurie.Tenace at dep.state.fl.us
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