AP Report: Pharmawater Story Gets Even Bigger

I don't even have the space to summarize this very extensive investigation by the AP, so here are the lede grafs:

"U.S. manufacturers, including major drugmakers, have legally released at least 271 million pounds of pharmaceuticals into waterways that often provide drinking water - contamination the federal government has consistently overlooked, according to an Associated Press investigation.

"Hundreds of active pharmaceutical ingredients are used in a variety of manufacturing, including drugmaking: For example, lithium is used to make ceramics and treat bipolar disorder; nitroglycerin is a heart drug and also used in explosives; copper shows up in everything from pipes to contraceptives.

"Federal and industry officials say they don't know the extent to which pharmaceuticals are released by U.S. manufacturers because no one tracks them - as drugs. But a close analysis of 20 years of federal records found that, in fact, the government unintentionally keeps data on a few, allowing a glimpse of the pharmaceuticals coming from factories."

Suffice to say that tons and tons of this stuff ends up in America's waterways each year and that goodly amounts of it are connected with psych meds and other pharma products and governments federal and local don't seem too concerned about the phenomenon, even though there's research showing it's bad for fish. So it would be less worrisome for humans? Methinks not.