First of all, it’s not “news.” Here’s an article from three years ago, here’s an article from five years ago, and there’s lots of older evidence of the same thing.

Second, we need some perspective. A century ago, in most major cities the water was polluted with horse manure runoff into the sewers. Lack of basic sanitation and filtering is far more of a problem for drinking water than trace levels of meds are.

Third, the MSM is misreporting the major cause of the contamination. Here’s an example of that misreporting, and the AP apparently has hit the talking points that the television and radio media are following.

How do the drugs get into the water?

People take pills. Their bodies absorb some of the medication, but the rest of it passes through and is flushed down the toilet. The wastewater is treated before it is discharged into reservoirs, rivers or lakes. Then, some of the water is cleansed again at drinking water treatment plants and piped to consumers. But most treatments do not remove all drug residue.

Bullshit. Not human shit, bullshit.

The contamination comes from disposal of UNUSED medications. The most common methods of disposal are flushing the drugs down the drain, and throwing them in the trash (PDF link). Matter of fact,

The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and other governmental agencies recommend the drain or trash as disposal methods; however, both these disposal routes can lead to water contamination.

While many researchers claim that the majority of pharmaceuticals entering the environment are from excretion, these claims are based on intuition, not empirical evidence.

One huge barrier to recycling/proper disposal programs is the DEA! Their regs state that only law enforcement officials can handle controlled substances once they have been released to the end-user, so pharmacy-based return programs (at least in the U.S.) would be difficult to administer.