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Unprescribed: Legislation to Keep Drugs Out of Water Thwarted by U.S. Pharmaceutical Lobbying

Because trace levels of pharmaceuticals have been detected in drinking water and linked to abnormalities in aquatic organisms, drug-disposal legislation has attracted broad support from public health officials, law enforcement agencies, and environmental groups.Yet the U.S. pharmaceutical industry, whose twelve largest companies made a profit of $US 44 billion in 2010, have countered with a coast-to-coast campaign to prevent lawmakers from making the industry pay for drug-disposal programs....

At least a decade after analytic technology became sensitive enough to detect pharmaceuticals at concentrations of parts per trillion — or one drop in a thousand Olympic-sized swimming pools — nearly half of the states in the union have proposed legislation to encourage safe disposal of prescription medications. Because trace levels of pharmaceuticals have been detected in drinking water and linked to abnormalities in aquatic organisms, drug-disposal legislation has attracted broad support from public health officials, law enforcement agencies, and environmental groups.Yet the U.S. pharmaceutical industry, whose twelve largest companies made a profit of $US 44 billion in 2010, have countered with a coast-to-coast campaign to prevent lawmakers from making the industry pay for drug-disposal programs....
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