Anti-abortion activists, attorneys general, and lawmakers have been lobbying for the agency to carry the study for years

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it is launching a drinking water quality study to look for traces of abortion pills mifepristone and misoprostol for the first time.

Anti-abortion activists, attorneys general, and lawmakers have been lobbying for the agency to carry the study for years.

Researchers at the agency will collect water samples “from several locations in different metropolitan areas” and test them for thousands of drugs, pesticides and synthetic chemicals, including mifepristone, misoprostol, and multiple types of “forever chemicals,” according to a description of the study.

  • TrollAccount69@lemmy.mlBanned from community
    27·
    3 days ago

    That sounds like the kind of study we would all want.

    I don’t understand how checking for prescription medication and forever chemicals in drinking water is controversial…

    • Madison420@lemmy.world
      12·
      3 days ago

      Because they’re doing it with the understanding and the wish to find them not to clean up the water but to ban any related to abortions.

      • teagrrl@lemmy.ml
        4·
        2 days ago

        This guy is not worth the time, their name is literally TrollAccount69. Hopefully admins remove them soon. Block and move on.

        • Madison420@lemmy.world
          31·
          2 days ago

          Nah bad engagement fucks up their models when it’s ai and I don’t mind messing with morons on the off chance they’re a clanker.

      • TrollAccount69@lemmy.mlBanned from community
        27·
        3 days ago

        It’s a study to see if prescription drugs and forever chemicals are in drinking water.

        I would like to know if prescription drugs and forever chemicals are in drinking water.

        I do not care if the people who advocated for testing for particular prescription drugs are anti abortion. It is good to know if prescription drugs and forever chemicals are in drinking water.

        • ARealAlaskan@lemmy.caEnglish
          5·
          3 days ago

          If you read all of the article, you will see that their stated intent is to restrict access to abortion pills. This is scary because a government agency is being weaponized to lay ground work to strip rights. Neither of the hormones in those pills are on a list of environmentally damaging things.

          Given that the risk is restricting rights for a whole group of people vs an unproven. Risk to the environment, the prudent thing to do is test for the KNOWN harmful chemicals and focus on mitigating them in the environment.

          I would be in support of researching and if, after research, it was discovered that those drugs are harmful, testing for and addressing them.

          Tl;Dr There are big fish to fry in terms of environmentally damaging chemicals. Frying something that might not even be a fish, at the price of government intervention in a whole group of people, and, honestly, generation of children, is a terrible violation of privacy, and rights.

          • TrollAccount69@lemmy.mlBanned from community
            13·
            3 days ago

            I might have missed it but the article seemed to state two things separately, that the epa is gonna test for a bunch of stuff and some birth control compounds are included in that group and that an anti abortion group has been pushing for that for quite some time.

            Im old, so the claim that the pill gets in the water isn’t new to me. A government entity actually testing to see if it’s true is. I don’t think it’s bad to do this study.

            I think saying “no, you shouldn’t even test for it!” Does more harm to women than otherwise.

          • TrollAccount69@lemmy.mlBanned from community
            15·
            3 days ago

            It’s a good thing they’re planning to do a scientific study then, that methodology claims to be able to root out bias.

              • TrollAccount69@lemmy.mlBanned from community
                13·
                3 days ago

                It’s the same as before rfk. It’s the same people by and large as before rfk.

                Surely you can’t be suggesting a department which could conduct perfectly reasonable research before is suddenly unable to do so now?

                How can a study on the presence of thousands of different prescription drugs and other chemicals in drinking water be bad in your eyes?

                • Madison420@lemmy.world
                  3·
                  3 days ago

                  No it’s not.

                  Sorta. Capable, possibly. Willing, not at all.

                  The study itself, mm sorta here nor there. What they do with the results is the issue.

                  • TrollAccount69@lemmy.mlBanned from community
                    12·
                    3 days ago

                    I’m gonna go out on a limb and speak for the average American when I say that knowing if there are prescription drugs and chemicals in my drinking water isn’t “sorta here nor there”.

    • velma@sh.itjust.worksOP
      6·
      3 days ago

      The group has been advocating for the Trump administration to restrict access to the drug. It has alleged that as women increasingly use the abortion pills at home to terminate pregnancies, flushing the expelled tissue, traces of the pill make their way to water supply, contaminating it. The group conducted its own testing in three U.S. cities. It further has claimed that the drug is also contaminating tap water and threatening human fertility.

      While water contamination from all pharmaceuticals is a growing concern, there is no evidence that abortion pills are harming the water supply or are harmful to people.

      “I think what’s concerning here is that there’s already a culture of criminalization around abortion, especially since Dobbs [v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization], and the potential to use this as justification for further surveillance could create more fear for abortion seekers, for providers at a time when folks are already being criminalized and for their pregnancy outcomes, including abortion,” Anna Bernstein, principal federal policy adviser for the Guttmacher Institute, told The Hill.

      This is another way to target women who have abortions. I consider that pretty controversial for a government to do.

      • TrollAccount69@lemmy.mlBanned from community
        17·
        3 days ago

        I will not claim to be a medical professional, but testing to see if prescription drugs are in the drinking water supply seems like a good thing.

        If the anti abortion people call for testing drinking water for prescription drugs and none are found then that’s that. If traces are found then that deserves scrutiny and possible remediation.

          • TrollAccount69@lemmy.mlBanned from community
            13·
            3 days ago

            Yes. An anti abortion group which has advocated for testing drinking water for the presence of birth control drugs was quoted. It’s something they’ve been advocating for for a long time. Many years ago it was considered a kooky conspiracy talking point.

            The article describes the study as testing for thousands of chemicals. The article lists two birth control drugs among them.

            It would be good to know if those chemicals are in drinking water.

            • velma@sh.itjust.worksOP
              2·
              3 days ago

              While water contamination from all pharmaceuticals is a growing concern, there is no evidence that abortion pills are harming the water supply or are harmful to people.

              Nathan Donley, the environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity, told the outlet mifepristone is not one of the known contaminants on the EPA’s list to regulate.

              “There are major water contaminants that need to be regulated, and testing for those things can be good as long as regulation happens. And then on the other hand, if we’re wasting time on a witch hunt for… those things like mifepristone, then that’s time and resources we take away from regulating and studying things that that are actually a problem,” Donley said.

              • TrollAccount69@lemmy.mlBanned from community
                12·
                3 days ago

                A careful reader will notice that in those quotes no one is saying there isn’t presence or contamination, only that it’s nothing to worry about, is not harmful to people and isn’t on the official list of stuff the epa looks out for.

                I genuinely don’t see the big deal. Crazy people have been right about stuff before. You figure out if they’re right by investigating that stuff rather than dismissing it out of hand. Including the crazy people claims in the big water study looking for a thousand other things is a good way to save money on lab costs.

                • velma@sh.itjust.worksOP
                  2·
                  3 days ago

                  It’s a dangerous precedent to allow these kinds of decisions to be driven by anti-abortion and anti-women’s rights activists.

                  • TrollAccount69@lemmy.mlBanned from community
                    1·
                    3 days ago

                    On the other hand, and bear in mind I am not a medical professional:

                    These compounds are present in effluvia. The wastewater treatment system (I’m generalizing here) tries to follow the most basic downstream and upstream procedures but can still end up with significant amounts of stuff from effluent in its clean source. If we know that stuff that ought to go through the out pipe makes its way to the in pipe already, and we know of a specific chemical present in the out pipe, it seems reasonable to test for that chemical in the in pipe.

                    Alternately: I don’t think finally testing something people have been saying for twenty years is a bad precedent.