Personal pharmaceuticals turning up in water supply; scientists are concerned

• Scientists are beginning to monitor the extent of pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) in the aquatic environment and their consequences.
• Samples from 40 German rivers and streams turned up residues of 31 different PPCPs, according to a report presented at the March 2000 American Chemical Society meeting in San Francisco, California, by Thomas Ternes, a chemist at the Institute for Water Research and Water Technology in Wiesbaden.
• All three drug types can potentially interfere with normal reproduction and development in fish living downstream from sewage treatment plants.
• His laboratory studies show that estrogen compounds at parts-per-trillion exposures feminize male fish and disrupt the development of the circulatory system, eyes, and bladder.
• According to Nagler and a University of Idaho news release, tests conducted on Hanford Reach fall chinook showed most of the females tested had genetic markers found only in males.
• If super males carrying two Y chromosomes survive and return to spawn in 2003, their sperm would all have Y chromosomes and all of their offspring would be male.
• Scientists and environmentalists fear that the powerful chemicals are getting into drinking water and affecting human fertility.
• One third of Britain's drinking water comes from rivers; most of it is taken from below sewage works.
• Water UK, which represents the water companies, says that no hormone-disrupting chemical has ever been detected in British drinking water, and that fish placed in the water to test it did not become feminised.
• Study finds that men who eat Great Lakes fish contaminated with toxic, hormone-disrupting chemicals such as PCBs father a disproportionately high number of boys.
• A landmark study of more than 17,000 girls published three years ago reported that black girls, on average, experience the first signs of puberty between ages 8 and 9.