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Added By: Alex

Added on: 03/09/2008 @ 1:18:58 PM

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Here's what happens when everyone prepays for drugs and gets discounted meds. And yes, I'm being somewhat facetious here.
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	Jeremy - I believe virtually everything I read. 03/09/2008 @ 01:28:19 PM
I have to go watch Hooch now, so I didn't read the whole thing, so maybe it'll talk about this, but I read somewhere a while back about this phenomenon in regards to the hormones from birth control. They are particularly hard to get out of water, for some reason.		Rate this comment Yours: Rated 0 times.

	Alex - Who controls the past now controls the future 03/09/2008 @ 01:53:02 PM
Jeremy Wrote - 03/09/2008 @ 01:28:19 PM I have to go watch Hooch now, so I didn't read the whole thing, so maybe it'll talk about this, but I read somewhere a while back about this phenomenon in regards to the hormones from birth control. They are particularly hard to get out of water, for some reason. To summarize the article, many treatment plants don't even test for pharmaceuticals and it sounded like pretty much none of them actually make an effort to remove them from the water. The ones that did have some test results found all sorts of different drugs.		Rate this comment Yours: Rated 0 times.

	Jon - 1 bajillion posts 03/10/2008 @ 11:27:21 AM
Yeah, my friend showed me an article about a year and a half ago about hormones from birth control pills in the water supply. Some scientists in Canada purposely dumped a bunch into a lake and then watched how it turned the male fish to male female hybrids or something. Ok, I'm playing fast and loose with the specifics, but the point was we're all going to be women soon. Or was that the point. I don't remember, but why did the Canadians feel the need to do that?		Rate this comment Yours: Rated 0 times.

	Jon - 1000000 posts (and counting!) 03/10/2008 @ 12:22:58 PM
Ok, after a little research, I found some articles about the study I mentioned. I guess they added quite small amounts of the hormones actually. I think this is the original article, or at least a different article on the same story. http://www.spokesmanreview.com/allstories-news-story.asp?date=062903&ID=s1374400 from the article: "The clarity of the result stems from the fact that Kidd used Canada's unique Experimental Lakes Area, a range of 85 unpolluted lakes hours from any city. For 35 years the Canadian government has set it aside for experiments in environmental science." One thing that my friend and I found particularly interesting was the fact that they did this in a lake that was picked because it was isolated and unpolluted. I understand the need for research, but it seems kind of funny that they found these great unpolluted lakes out in the wilderness and then decided they should do experiements on them and dump stuff in. Anyway, I also found an update, since I guess the study just ended. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080216095726.htm I mostly skimmed, but it sounds like for estrogen, they can remove it rather easily, and actually do in the modern treatment plants. Also, this study was about wastewater and lakes and fish. Not drinking water like the one Alex gave the link to.		Rate this comment Yours: Rated 0 times.
Jon screwed with this 2 times, last at 03/10/2008 12:27:11 pm

	Jon - 3375 Posts 03/10/2008 @ 12:32:03 PM
From the article Alex linked to: "One technology, reverse osmosis, removes virtually all pharmaceutical contaminants but is very expensive for large-scale use and leaves several gallons of polluted water for every one that is made drinkable." I'm pretty sure Dasani does reverse osmosis. I'm going to drink that.		Rate this comment Yours: Rated 0 times.

	Jeremy - 9475 Posts 03/10/2008 @ 03:07:19 PM
Many brands of bottled water are right from the tap, as is Dasani. It's a good thing homeopathy is complete bull-plop, or we'd be boned. Parts per billion, or better yet, trillion, are potent medicines in that world.		Rate this comment Yours: Rated 0 times.
Jeremy perfected this at 03/10/2008 3:09:33 pm

	Alex - Who controls the past now controls the future 03/10/2008 @ 11:06:51 PM
If the gov is going to check into this water issue, who's going to be tracking down guest lists at Canseco parties?		Rate this comment Yours: Rated 0 times.

	Jeremy - Robots don't say 'ye' 03/11/2008 @ 12:06:01 AM
Oh for crap-sakes. Parts per trillion means that to imbibe one ounce, which I'd assume is quite a bit larger than the "normal" dose, you would have to drink 7.5 billion gallons of water. The water itself would be your problem long before anything in it harmed you.		Rate this comment Yours: Rated 0 times.

	Alex - Refactor Mercilessly 03/11/2008 @ 12:54:11 PM
What happened that whole an once of prevention is worth a pound of cure line of thinking? Shouldn't the government get everyone clean water first to prevent health costs later? I agree though that in some ways this will be blown out of proportion (what isn't nowadays?), but I do feel that in very heavily populated areas with limited water resources this is or could soon become a realistic threat to people's health.		Rate this comment Yours: Rated 0 times.

	Jeremy - Super Chocolate Bear 03/11/2008 @ 01:19:16 PM
Well, what is "clean?" Everything has realistic impurity standard attached to it. Nothing you eat or drink can reasonably be expected to "only" be whatever you're consuming, especially down to the parts per trillion level. They'll just have to keep an eye on it in urban areas. A lot of this is just mental. There are areas, like Orlando, that "reclaim" sewage water, and, despite the fact that many areas clean it to more stringent standards than the drinking water, public perception forces them to use it only for non potable things like watering grass. (In Orlando there's a sign every 6 inches telling you it's reclaimed water too.) People like to think their drinking water magically appears as virgin molecules in their water pipes. In reality it's coming from rivers and whatnot that are just as dirty as anything, and are usually the same source that the reclaimed water is dumped back into anyway.		Rate this comment Yours: Rated 0 times.