'Congress has not sent an environmental law to the president's desk in 18 years'

Chemical contamination of the environment growing at an exponential rate, say scientists



Minnesota Zumbro River laced with traces of prescription pills

(NaturalNews) While it's true that Americans have been afforded the luxury of living in a modern day world, our natural resources, the fundamentals upon which human life began, continue to be destroyed and depleted. One must ask which is more important: convenience or sustainability?The so-called innovations of today's society are threatening the planet in which we live, say scientists, revealing that increasing number of pharmaceuticals and other forms of pollution are being deposited into our lakes, rivers and soil. Even more disturbing is that the effects of this phenomenon are widely unknown.For once, a lack of regulation on the government's part is largely to blame. The "environmental spread of pharmaceuticals" is totally ignored by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), allowing these man-made pills to end up everywhere, including in our drinking water The Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976, which hasn't been updated since its creation, excludes drugs and pesticides. Under the law, the EPA is required to maintain a registry of industrial compounds that may be potentially toxic, but advanced safety testing of those materials is not required, according to a report byOnly a fraction of the estimated 84,000 compounds registered have been tested for their safety on humans, prompting scientists and environmental groups to call for a serious revision of how risk assessments of suspect compounds are performed."Our chemical safety net is more hole than net," said Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group. "Where does that leave us in terms of scientific understanding of what drugs to regulate?"Anne Womack Kolton, vice president for communications at the American Chemistry Council, which represents chemical manufacturers said, "Think about the world 40 years ago. It was a vastly different place. It's common sense to revise the law and make it consistent with what we know about chemicals today."The American Chemical Society maintains a database of chemical substance information containing more than 89 million organic and inorganic substances and 65 million sequences dating back to 1957. An estimated 15,000 new substances are added each day, many of which are poorly understood, scientists say.In an essay published in the journal, Dr. Jerald L. Schnoor, a University of Iowa professor of civil and environmental engineering, wrote about the way older compounds are altered in the environment Some substances become even more toxic after their breakdown by plants or animals.For example, polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs (which are banned in the U.S. but keep showing up in the environment), are broken down into even more "toxic metabolites," according toAnother example is chlorpyrifos, a highly toxic organophosphate insecticide that when ingested by animals become 3,000 times more potent, according toWhile investigating the chemistry of the Minnesota Zumbro River, environmental health scientists were surprised at the "sheer range and variety" of prescription drugs they found.Relatively high levels of acetaminophen – an over-the-counter painkiller that causes liver damage in humans – the antibiotic anti-convulsive carbamazepine, caffeine and pesticides were among the contaminants found."We don't know what these background levels mean in terms of environmental or public health," said Deborah Swackhamer, the investigation's lead scientist.The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) tracks chemicals in waterways , sediments, landfills and municipal sewage sludge, which are often converted to fertilizer. Steroid hormones and triclosan (an antibacterial agent banned in Minnesota) were found in sewage.The antidepressant Prozac has shown up in fish, causing them to be anxious, anti-social and even homicidal, reported the"We're looking at an increasingly diverse array of organic and inorganic chemicals that may have ecosystem health effects," said Edward Furlong, a USGS chemist. "Many of them are understudied and unrecognized."