Prozac 'found in drinking water' (BBC)

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.
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more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3545684.stm

Despite the news, people seem to be fairly calm about it.

If you're not laughing, read response #3 again, slowly.

Data like this has been coming out for years... there have been informational campaigns, and yet the loo still seems irresistible.

On edit- depending on what they're actually looking at, could be the compounds are the result of excretion:

Metabolism

Fluoxetine is extensively metabolized in the liver to norfluoxetine and a number of other unidentified metabolites. The only identified active metabolite, norfluoxetine, is formed by demethylation of fluoxetine. In animal models, S-norfluoxetine is a potent and selective inhibitor of serotonin uptake and has activity essentially equivalent to R- or S-fluoxetine. R-norfluoxetine is significantly less potent than the parent drug in the inhibition of serotonin uptake. The primary route of elimination appears to be hepatic metabolism to inactive metabolites excreted by the kidney.

There's another argument in favor of sawdust bucket toilets for composting rather than flushing our(toxic) waste.

See my edit....;)

Wouldn't be "prozac" though.

senseless.

kestrel, wondering if it's even accidental......

It would be difficult to state if the trend toward more prozac in water is up from ten years ago, because 10 years ago, there was no instrumentation that can detect it at the levels being meausred today.

The improvements in mass spec have been enormous.

It is somewhat ironic that these sort of improvements are being realized precisely at the time that scientific literacy is declining.

they came up with the drug. Since they give out scripts for it like candy, I figured it would be an effective weapon in keeping the masses apathetic. Explains a lot.

head meds into the water.

They have the same problem in Los Angeles, only with Viagra....