Update As Of 11/24/2013
Here is another one of those scare articles titled “Only Half of Drugs Removed by Sewage Treatment/
Only about half of the prescription drugs and other newly emerging contaminants in sewage are removed by treatment plants says a new report”. This one is from the same source again (see below), i.e. Environmental Health News (EHN).
Again, the underlying report is not linked in this article, but the original article by EHN contains a link to original source (here). However, the report is only available to subscribers.
The original EHN article contains a mix of information from interviews, different studies, but with a strong tendency to raise alarm.
Apparently from an interview with the lead author of the underlying study we learn “The compounds show up in low levels – parts per billion or parts per trillion”. We do not learn whether this extremely low level is above any legal or regulatory thresholds.
Somewhere in the middle of the EHN article it is mentioned “Chemicals’ showing up in wastewater effluent doesn’t necessarily mean they will be found in drinking water.”
More could be said about this Scientific American/Environmental Health News article, but for brevity sake I will stop here.
The detection of medical drugs or household chemicals etc. in water after sewage treatment has become a hot topic. Thus, vetting and due diligence in news reporting is paramount to avoid unnecessary alarmism and sensationalism.
A Remarkable History
This popular science magazine has an impressive history going back to 1845. It is owned since 1987 by the renowned German publisher Holtzbrinck group. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein, have contributed articles in the past.
Strongly Biased Towards Environmentalism
Over time, I have noticed multiple times that the online American Scientific has an environmentalism bias. A strong one too. If you don’t believe me check out this one.
Recently, I have come across these two alarmist articles in Scientific American:
Both are published by “Environmental Health News”. Both are intended to raise immediate fears by parents just by reading the strongly worded title. Both cited studies appear to have severe issues in terms of rigorous scientific methodology, e.g. representativeness (small sample size) and so on. Both do not link to the original study underlying the article by the “Environmental Health News” service. Both do not link back to the original article at the source (i.e. Environmental Health News).
For brevity sake, I will stop here even though more could be said about this shoddy, tendentious journalism.
Vetting And Double-Checking Sources
Any reputable publication should apply reasonable efforts and diligence to verify their sources and to properly cite sources.
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