Prozac found in drinking water in U.K.

Sleipnir

apparently.
Keep the general populous medicated!
It's amzing that anti-d's are handed out like sweets to the extend that they can find it in their waterways.



Traces of the antidepressant Prozac can be found in the nation's drinking water, it has been revealed.
An Environment Agency report suggests so many people are taking the drug nowadays it is building up in rivers and groundwater.

A report in Sunday's Observer says the government's environment watchdog has discussed the impact for human health.

A spokesman for the Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI) said the Prozac found was most likely highly diluted.

'Alarming'

The newspaper says environmentalists are calling for an urgent investigation into the evidence.

It quotes the Liberal Democrats' environment spokesman, Norman Baker MP, as saying the picture emerging looked like "a case of hidden mass medication upon the unsuspecting public".

He says: "It is alarming that there is no monitoring of levels of Prozac and other pharmacy residues in our drinking water."

Experts say the anti-depression drug gets into the rivers and water system via treated sewage water.

Prescriptions increase

The DWI said the Prozac (known technically as fluoxetine) was unlikely to pose a health risk as it was so "watered down".

The Observer says the revelations raise new fears over how many prescriptions for the drug are given out by doctors.

In the decade leading up to 2001, the number of prescriptions for antidepressants went up from nine million per year to 24 million per year, says the paper.

The Environment Agency report concluded that the Prozac in the water table could be potentially toxic and said the drug was a "potential concern".

The exact amount of Prozac in the nation's drinking water is not known.

Kone

Saw this a while ago, could do with a bit around my way!

mike65

Wait till the viagra kicks in! :eek:

Mike.

Sleepy

Maybe that's why Britain has such problems with teenage pregnancy - they're all to out of it to give a sh:t about contraception! :rolleyes:

impr0v

Reminds me of my father explaining his theory about homosexuality, that men were 'going that way' because of all the women on the pill and the hormones being in the water......

mike65

..more likely we'll all end up sperm-free.

Mike.

impr0v

Ahh, but we won't need any by that stage, cos we'll be all converted by the water, and too prozac-ed to care about it.

Number6

mike65 wrote:

..more likely we'll all end up sperm-free.

Most males nowadays have a lower sperm count then their grandads, due to the estrafecation (sp?) of our waterways. In a few years time (20-30), we'll all be infertile.

Hobbes

Reminds me of a Fabulous Furry Freak Brother cartoon, where the government are dumping uppers and downers into the water supply to get the right balance.

Tommy Vercetti

pity it wasn't cyanide

spoon

impr0v wrote:

Reminds me of my father explaining his theory about homosexuality, that men were 'going that way' because of all the women on the pill and the hormones being in the water......

his theory is all wrong,
It was the French, everyone was straight before they came along.

da_deadman

I wonder what would show up in our rivers and water supplies, if it was carefully examined...

me thinks of all the people urinating into the Liffey, all the waste pumped by factories into the local rivers, and the waste dumped by Sellafield into the Irish Sea....what a cocktail....

Blisterman

Do they pump the water you flush down your toilet back into your taps?
I'm moving to england this month.

spoon

Blisterman wrote:

Do they pump the water you flush down your toilet back into your taps?

They do, well it gets treated, then put back into the river, then pumped back up again and treated and then to your tap.
The treated waste water tends to be cleaner than the water in the river. So its not doing us any harm really.

Blisterman

if it's treated, how come thre's still prozak in it?

impr0v

Because the boffins have yet to invent an anti-prozac treatment.

There's an old chestnut about the water in London having been through the pipes of seven people before it comes out of your tap, though obviously this should be taken with a pinch of urban myth.

aidan_walsh

It's amzing that anti-d's are handed out like sweets to the extend that they can find it in their waterways.

Wonder if anyones ever ran a test for paracetamol... That would be an interesting level to see...