Medicinal bouillabaisse – the ‘why’
Recently I railed about the high levels of pharmaceuticals found in fish caught off the coast of several major cities. I had naively thought that stemmed from medicines passed from overmedicated Americans through their urine that weren’t being filtered out by wastewater treatment plants (an earlier explanation I had read).
Well that could certainly be a contributor, but who would have thought Big Pharma would just be dumping medicine-laden water directly (and legally) into the sewer system?
Three woeful facts here – one, that discharges of these chemicals isn’t regulated, two these discharges are mostly not even monitored, and three – we don’t filter these chemicals out of the waste stream before they enter our seafood pantry.
Enough to make me a vegetarian. Oh wait…I already am one!
Tags: Big Pharma, pollution, regulation, wastewater
April 21st, 2009 at 9:26 am
Hard to understand folks that are still willing to eat fish. If they are living under a blanket the don’t know that fish is toxic. So toxic that the standards are rolled back to allow it to be sold. We have fished the oceans out to the point where little is left. Our fish “farms” create a product more toxic than that in the natural waterways.
It hasn’t been safe to eat for decades folks. Your friends in government drop mercury, thalium, radium, uranium, plutonium and various other nice chemicals into the ocean. Funny thing about water, it swirls you know?
There are also stories about “pirates” going after some of the ships because they are dumping toxic waste in their native waters. Another story not being covered? Sure would be interested if we now called citizens by their correct name, pirates, terrorists, etc.