Mood Stabilizers Found in Drinking Water

Mood stabilizers, drugs used to treat bipolar and borderline personality disorders, are among many other pharmaceuticals found in the drinking water of over 41 million American households, according to a 2008 Associated Press investigative report. According to Dr. David Carpenter, director of the Institute for Health and Environment at New York State University, "We know we are being exposed to other people's drugs through our drinking water, and that can't be good." Trace amounts of many pharmaceuticals show up in virtually all bodies of water in the United States and the world.

What Are Mood Stabilizers?

• Mood stabilizers are prescribed for certain mental disorders. People with bipolar and borderline personality disorders experience intense emotional states that swing between a manic, high-energy mode and a hopeless, depressed mode. Mood stabilizers include anticonvulsants, lithium, antidepressants and antipsychotics. Anticonvulsants (and/or lithium) are usually used to treat the manic stage of the disease, along with an antipsychotic if necessary, and antidepressants treat the depressive stage. Treatments vary according to the diagnoses of bipolar or borderline personality disorder and also according to each individual patient. All of these medications showed up in the nation's drinking water supply.

The Facts

• Although the drugs found in the water supplies are in tiny concentrations, could even these low levels of pharmaceuticals be dangerous to humans and the environment? Trace amounts of hormones, antibiotics, mood stabilizers, painkillers, blood thinners and cardiac medications are not only in drinking water, but also in surface water (streams, lakes, rivers), rural groundwater and deep water aquifers. Unfortunately, neither treating wastewater nor treating drinking water before it comes out the tap eliminates the pharmaceuticals. Currently, the federal government has not set any safety limits for drugs in the water, nor does it require testing for this problem.

Entering the Water Supply

• The drugs are getting into the water supply not only through human use, but also through livestock agribusiness and veterinary uses. People take the medications, their body metabolizes some of the drug and the rest is flushed out through human wastes. Or people flush the drugs down the toilet when done with them. Meat producers treat livestock with medications, especially antibiotics and steroids. Vets are now treating pet patients for various diseases including cancer, diabetes and arthritis using some of the same medications as for humans. Some portion of these pharmaceuticals leach into the water supply constantly, either through animal wastes or disposal of unused portions of drugs.

The Dangers

• Toxicity studies of water have traditionally focused on high concentrations of potentially dangerous chemicals and pollutants--not chronic, low level concentrations of pharmaceuticals. At this point, scientists simply don't know enough about the risks of consuming constant, but tiny, levels of pharmaceuticals over decades. However, pharmaceuticals are designed to act on the human body, and are affecting human cells, even at the trace amounts found in the water supply. Wildlife, especially fish, earthworms and zooplankton, are reacting to the drugs as well. Currently, the EPA is analyzing hundreds of medications for potential inclusion as candidates for regulation in the Safe Drinking Water Act, but has not come to any decisions.

Potential Actions

• The George Washington School of Public Health recommends more attention to research; education efforts on disposing of medications properly; modified FDA regulations requiring pharmaceutical companies to assess environmental impacts of medications; changing how agribusiness releases livestock medications into the water supply; changes in water treatment systems; controlling discharge of contaminated water at the source; studying European Union regulations; and greater investment in water infrastructure.