Stream in India Loaded with Pharmaceutical Waste, Drugs

Researches recently analyzed the treated waste water from a plant where roughly 90 Indian drug manufacturers dump the treated byproducts of their work, finding that enough antibiotic was being dumped into a nearby stream to treat 90,000 people. The array of drugs detected in the researchers’ study included ingredients that make up the drugs that treat a variety of ailments, including hypertension, heart disease, depression, ulcers, gonorrhea, liver problems and a variety of other illnesses and ailments.

That has some worrying about the effect on those living around the stream who are unwittingly taking a veritable cornucopia of treatments by virtue of merely drinking the water. Said chemist Klaus Kuemmerer of the University of Freigburg Medical Center in Germany, "If you take a bath there, then you have all the antibiotics you need for treatment. If you just swallow a few gasps of water, you’re treated for everything. The question is for how long?" Kuemmerer is an expert in drug resistance in the environment but did not participate in the Indian study.

Those living around the area have been concerned for some time that drugs were entering their water supply. A recent study that came out before the new research indicated that Ciprofloxacin, a popular antibiotic, and cetirizine, an antihistamine, were in fact present in very high levels in the wells of six villages in the area that were tested. Said R. Durgamma, a mother of four, "We don’t have any other source, so we’re drinking it. When the local leaders come, we offer them water and they won’t take it."