We can’t quote the story due to copyright issues, so you can read it yourself here.
Let me give you the executive summary: Americans buy about 7 BILLION bottles of prescription and non-prescription drugs annually. Where do those drugs and their metabolic byproducts go? They are eliminated in our urine and feces, which end up in septic tanks or water treatment systems that do not eliminate them. They end up back in the ground water that ends up in our tap and our bottled water. If it is treated again, the addition of chlorine usually serves to make the residues even more toxic and active.
Since we seem to have an insatiable appetite for mood stabilizers of various sorts (anti-depressants, tranquilizers, sleeping pills, ADHD pills, etc.), these have been detected in water supplies all over the country. The old hippies wanted LSD in the water supply, and it looks like they sort of got their wish. Lots and lots of hormones, specifically the kinds that will lower a man’s testosterone, have been detected as a result of cattle feedlot operations and the ubiquitous use of hormonal birth control by women, some of which (such as Depo) was designed for the specific purpose of chemical castration. Meanwhile women are getting free birth control right in their bottled water. Wonderful!
And antibiotics are strewn all over the place willy nilly. They are in chicken feed, are fed to cattle right in their feed as a matter of course, plus consumed by humans. They wind up spread all over the environment where they help make antibiotic resistant superbugs, and in our water supply they throw off the dynamics of our own body ecosystem.
And there’s more. I just gave you the executive summary. If you want more detail, just read the article.
MEANWHILE — the ONLY form of filtration that gets rid of this crap is REVERSE OSMOSIS. It’s expensive. Get a sink model.