Two U.S. senators this afternoon (March 10, 2008) announced that they will hold hearings into the trace levels of pharmaceutical drugs that an Associated Press investigation found in the drinking water supplies of 41 million Americans.

The AP report, published today in The Sun and other newspapers, said that a five month investigation found low levels of drugs in the drinking water supplies of 24 major metropolitan areas - from Southern California to Northern New Jersey, from Detroit to Louisville, Ky. Baltimore was not on the list. The city, like many others across the U.S., does not test for pharmaceuticals.

Senators Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey and Barbara Boxer of California, both Democrats, announced that they will hold hearings next month on the question of whether minimal levels of drugs in drinking water pose a health threat.   Boxer said in a press release: "As Chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, I am alarmed at the pharmaceutical residues that reportedly are turning up in the drinking water of more than 41 million Americans.  Senator Lautenberg and I will be convening an oversight hearing on this matter as soon as possible to determine what can be done to protect our children and families.  I call on the EPA to take whatever steps are necessary to keep our communities safe."

In October 2005, The Sun reported that trace levels of prescription drugs were passing unaltered through people's bodies and being flushed down toilets, where they seeped unfiltered through sewage treatment plants and into rivers and streams. Some scientists suspected they were deforming the sexual organs of fish. "Scientists working on the Potomac River have netted 111 smallmouth bass with bizarre sexual traits. The fish were males but had eggs growing inside their testes. Researchers found many of these gender-bending bass downstream from sewage treatment plants in water tinged with a chemical called ethinylestradiol - the active ingredient in birth control pills. More studies are necessary, biologists say, but evidence is mounting that trace levels of prescription drugs in rivers and streams may be harming fish, tadpoles, frogs, mussels and oysters" The Sun reported.

In September 2006, The Washington Post  pushed the story further, reporting that the drugs in the Potomac River were raising questions not only about the sexually deformed fish -- but about what potential impact there could be for the millions of people who draw their tap water from the river.

Now the Associated Press has pointed a spotlight on the issue nationally.  But the news organization cautions there is no evidence that people are being harmed. "To be sure, the concentrations of these pharmaceuticals are tiny, measured in quantities of parts per billion or trillion, far below the levels of a medical dose. Also, utilities insist their water is safe. But the presence of so many prescription drugs - and over-the-counter medicines like acetaminophen and ibuprofen - in so much of our drinking water is heightening worries among scientists about long-term consequences to human health," the AP reports.