Photo: Judith Cezar

"Every home medicine cabinet is a public health concern. Nobody wants someone else's prescription drugs in their morning coffee."

Consumer advocacy took on new meaning for Sharon Batt when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1988. When Batt, then the editor of a consumer-health magazine, began to think about how her illness could have been prevented, her research segued naturally into the cause-and-effect connection between human health and the environment. Today, Batt is one of Canada's leading activists in the campaign to educate the public about the hazards associated with drugs in our water system.

Where do these drugs come from? Humans are ground zero. For more than 20 years, research has revealed trace levels of pharmaceutical drugs in surface water, groundwater, drinking water and sewage. Studies have shown some 50 to 90 percent of the active ingredients of a medication are excreted and enter the sewage system, while hospitals and nursing homes routinely dispose of "vast quantities" of unused pharmaceuticals. Chronic exposure to such bioactive substances — even at low levels — may be harmful to human health. "Intuitively," says Batt, "people believe there are links between the environment and health."

The contamination, however, is not restricted to prescription drugs. Phthalates from the long list of widely available personal care products — cosmetics, perfumes, soaps and hair-care items, for example — likewise persist in the environment, many as hormone mimics. "It is perfectly possible to make most of these products without the hazardous additives," she says. "The establishment can be blind to options. You have to ask why the medical establishment doesn't spend as much effort on prevention as it does on coming up with new treatments."

Batt believes that the quest for profit has overtaken industry safety concerns, leaving grassroots activists to push regulatory bodies to safeguard public health. "It's not a high priority for the government," she says. "There needs to be a grassroots critique of the politics of health care." She supports a strategy to curtail drug promotion to consumers, reduce drug doses, explore alternative treatments and aggressively pursue safe options for disposing of unused drugs.

Currently working on a doctorate in bioethics, social policy and social anthropology at Dalhousie University, Batt believes women, who are the primary caregivers and family-health decision-makers, are well positioned to lead the movement. "Every medicine cabinet is a public health concern," she says. "Nobody wants someone else's prescription drugs in their morning coffee."