India's Pharma Water Problem, Courtesy Of America's Pharma Lifestyle

A stunning report was out the AP wire yesterday: news that allegedly treated wastewater in the region where many American pharma companies manufacture generic drugs in India is filled with huge concentrations (the highest in the world, the reporter claims) of pharmaceuticals, especially antibiotics, but also including anti-depressants, heart drugs and so on. The big offender is ciprofloxacin, an antibiotic that's winding up in Indian wastewater and drinking water at a level of 150 times that seen in American drinking water (where it's presence is also unacceptably high). While the problem may be localized to India's pharma region, it's sure indicative of just how great the befouling reach of Big Pharma has gotten in this world and how lax the companies are overseas at cleaning up the messes they create while making anti-depressants for bummed-out Americans. We take drugs for literally every ailment under the sun and moon in the US ($250 billion or so each year) and because of the way global economies work now, the same drugs wind up in the drinking water of people in India. That's just crazy.

In addition to whatever concerns you ought to have about long-term exposure to various pharma products for the folks in India, another big concern is the possibility that having an antibiotic floating around the water is that it can create new strains of bacteria resistant to current antibiotics because of all the antibiotics in the water that actual humans drink. That's not good, but I'll point you to the article itself to see how that's fleshed out.

What amuses me is that both the branded and generic pharma manufacturers trade groups in the US basically declined to comment on the situation. Not to be too much of a cynic here, but I'd say these trade groups' members have a special responsibility to remedy this situation and so does the Indian government, which pulls in taxes from these companies.

BTW, when I wrote of the "pharma water" situation here in the US last year, several commenters basically acted as if the situation was benign and of no great import. I wonder if they'll say the same thing this time out.

Last year, I noted that Prozac in a water supply was found to make fish swim oddly and not eat. Also late year, the AP broke news on how psych meds and other pharma products were winding up in the water supplies of major metropolitan areas.

Congratulations to the AP for continuing to press this story in the US and elsewhere. It's further evidence of why America (and the world) need healthy news organizations and reporters paid a decent wage, otherwise stories such as this would never come to the fore and the public would go along in deluded ignorance.