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.
It quotes the Liberal Democrats' environment spokesman, Norman Baker MP, as saying the picture emerging looked like "a case of hidden mass medication upon the unsuspecting public".
He says: "It is alarming that there is no monitoring of levels of Prozac and other pharmacy residues in our drinking water."
Experts say the anti-depression drug gets into the rivers and water system via treated sewage water.
Prescriptions increase
The DWI said the Prozac was unlikely to pose a health risk as it was so "watered down".
The Observer says the revelations raise new fears over how many prescriptions for the drug are given out by doctors.
In the decade leading up to 2001, the number of prescriptions for antidepressants went up from nine million per year to 24 million per year, says the paper.
The Environment Agency report concluded that the Prozac in the water table could be potentially toxic and said the drug was a "potential concern".
The exact amount of Prozac in the nation's drinking water is not known.
Unsuprisingly, I do not feel bad about this discovery at all. I feel nice and relaxed.
Mayabird is my girlfriend
Justice League:BotM:MM:SDnet City Watch:Cybertron's Finest "Well then, science is bullshit. "
-revprez, with yet another brilliant rebuttal.
Dont look at me, my share is still in packets in my drawer.
"Prodesse Non Nocere." "It's all about popularity really, if your invisible friend that tells you to invade places is called Napoleon, you're a loony, if he's called Jesus then you're the president." "I'd drive more people insane, but I'd have to double back and pick them up first..." "All it takes for bullshit to thrive is for rational men to do nothing." - Kevin Farrell, B.A. Journalism. BOTM - EBC - Horseman - G&C - Vampire
Prozac is the least of your worries. With the amount of drugs being used readily today, there is an increase in what gets out into the general ecosystem. The kidneys are amazingly adept at making this so and thus plenty of personal dosages are ending up seeping from the sewers into wild water reservoirs. Much like how DDT started becoming a concern, the problem now is that the same thing is happening with every other pharmaceutical or agricultural chemical there is.
Why do you need Viagra? Just take a nap. That always works for me.
{} Thrawn wins. Any questions? {} Great Dolphin Conspiracy {} Proud member of the defunct SEGNOR {} Enjoy the rythmic hip thrusts {} In my past life I was either Vlad the Impaler or Katsushika Hokusai {}
They'ed probably think it was a "Sign from God" that they were "Unclean".
Mass fundie suicides would follow.......
And this is why you don't watch anything produced by Ronald D. Moore after he had his brain surgically removed and replaced with a bag of elephant semen.-Gramzamber, on why Caprica sucks
This bit of news was already posted some time ago. Basically, help out and don't flush surplus drugs down the toliet.
"This cult of special forces is as sensible as to form a Royal Corps of Tree Climbers and say that no soldier who does not wear its green hat with a bunch of oak leaves stuck in it should be expected to climb a tree"
— Field Marshal William Slim 1956
That's a lot of excess Prozac if its measurable in the national water supply...
