Review of disaster

Living at this end of the Mississippi, the big disaster is the collapse of the I-35W bridge. A report has finally come out addressing the public health / medical issues. There is a summary of the article in journal Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness covers some highlights of "lessons hopefully learned". Unfortunately, I doubt that the infrastructure maintenance long-term financing has been noticed.

Drugs in Drinking Water

Environmental concerns about the quality of source water suddenly include the active ingredients from pharmaceuticals/drugs. And people wonder why they're told they ought not dump old prescriptions in the toilet as a disposal method? Or put them in a landfill? Hmmmm ... where are they supposed to go? One recommendation I saw a couple years ago was to return it to the pharmacy where you bought it, since they will have a disposal program for their own waste. Of course, theirs could be going into a landfill, too - it just won't go in the ordinary trash. oooh, any my home town is on the map with a cute red "tested positive" dot. Yum yum. cholesterol medication nicotine derivative carbamazepine tranquilizers hormones "We plan to put this into some kind of context other than just scientific nomenclature, so folks can get some level of understanding about what it means," said Grubb. Wow ... what a concept. How are they going to explain parts per trillion? really, really small? Apparently since most of this stuff gets into the waters and sewers through human excretion, it might be an added incentive for more patient-specific dosing.