I remembered a frightening word the other day,
Thalidomide. It has not gone away! I recalled
reading it was being prescribed for some
people. Looking up on google tells me of
precautions against it getting to child
bearing women. But the best precaution is not
using it. Some might tell me it occurs
naturally in trace amounts but then I would
say we double that level if it gets into the
water from pharmaceutical use. And we do not
want such a nasty chemical at any level now
we know what it does.

This is pure speculation from me but I wonder
if this explains those birth deformities I
mentioned from 20 years ago.

Right, but do you know what they were prescribing it for? Maybe not using it isn't an option for those people. Never assume you know everything involved in other people's decision-making.

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http://amssolarempire.blogspot.com

From this article on Thalidomide:

Researchers, however, continued to work with the drug. Soon after its banishment, an Israeli doctor discovered anti-inflammatory effects of thalidomide and began to look for uses of the medication despite its teratogenic effects. He found that patients with erythema nodosum leprosum, a painful skin condition associated with leprosy, experienced relief of their pain by taking thalidomide. Further work conducted in 1991 by Dr. Gilla Kaplan at Rockefeller University in New York City showed that thalidomide worked in leprosy by inhibiting tumor necrosis factor alpha. [3] Kaplan partnered with Celgene Corporation to further develop the potential for thalidomide. Subsequent research has shown that it is effective in multiple myeloma, and it is now approved by the FDA for use in this malignancy. The FDA has also approved the drug's use in the treatment of Crohn's disease. There are studies underway to determine the drug's effects on arachnoiditis and several types of cancers. However, physicians and patients alike must go through a special process to prescribe and receive thalidomide (S.T.E.P.S and RevAssist) to ensure no more children are born with birth defects traceable to the medication. Celgene Corporation has also developed analogues to thalidomide that are substantially more powerful and have fewer side effects.

Sounds like the drug has some value as long as the proper precautions are taken.

This whole thread seems to me to be a classic overreaction. Technology has allowed us to measure things in the parts per billion and even parts per trillion range. Just because something can be detected, it doesn't mean it poses a threat. We could spend huge sums of money addressing this particular "threat" but is it money well spent? What happens when technology improves so that we can detect substances in the parts per quadrillion or pentillion range? Will we overreact to that "threat" as well?

This isn't to suggest that the matter should be completely ignored - I just think it needs to be kept in perspective. If further studies show that drugs at these levels in our drinking water present a threat then we'll have to address it. Until then, if you're really that concerned about it, buy a reverse osmosis water filter. I saw one for sale today at Costcos. I didn't catch the price but it didn't seem very high. Even if it does turn out to present a health threat, it might make more sense to install those small filters for drinking water in homes, schools, and places of employment than to try to treat all water for every city and town. After all, only a small percentage of the water that most people buy is used for drinking or cooking. The majority goes to things like bathing, watering the lawn, doing laundry, flushing the toilet, etc.

...You must be reading a different thread than I am. I see some reasonable concern, acknowledgement that we don't know enough and need further tests before responding... Nope, no overreactions. Just plain old reactions.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

This thread makes me wonder if these pharmaceuticals can bioaccumulate in fish like mercury or PCBs.

Depends on the drug, I should think. I know that, were I taking lithium, I'd have to be tested regularly because it can stay in your system.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

And apart from what the dosage is, every drug has different metabolic and uptake rates, which means that the same dosage of different drugs can result in very different concentrations over very different times.

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And the "driving on the freeway on a scooter" analogy still holds true because the pilots are sitting in 7 to 30 ton aircraft o' doom and you are running around them in your very own Meatbody, Mark I. Beep, beep.
Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

Won't somebody think of the children?!?!

OMG!! The Children!!!

Thank you for proving what I said in post 48, and I'm sorry if I'm contradicting what I said in post 57.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009

...There's children in our drinking water too? Will it never end?

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Gee; has enough time elapsed to create a new story to make it sound like something nobody has heard?

Water Experts Worry About Drugs In Drinking Water

Good; they are working on it. Now, can somebody tell me if they reached any conclusions, or found anything new?

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

233 days was the norm...
Scientists drug-test whole cities (August 21, 2007)

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