Originally published May 27 2014
Antibiotics found at high concentrations in China's lakes and rivers
by L.J. Devon, Staff Writer
(NaturalNews) Cities in China are quickly becoming toxic waste sites, emitting so much pollution now that people have to walk around with filters over their face. Even the bright blue skies above these highly polluted cities can't disperse the smog. One man has even proposed selling jarred French mountain air to Chinese city dwellers. Many "organic" products coming from China contain alarming levels of heavy metals, as tested by the Natural News Forensic Food Lab.
As these modern-day chemicals are consumed en masse and discarded into the environment as waste, they begin infiltrating the countryside, accumulating in rivers and lakes. A joint study by the East China University of Science and Technology and the Tongji and Tsinghua Universities, reports that Chinese water quality is plummeting fast, with worrisome amounts of antibiotics and pharmaceuticals appearing throughout the country's waterways.
In fact, the country's surface water is carrying about 158 studied pharmaceuticals and personal care product chemicals. Twenty of the chemicals seem to be showing up at alarming levels. Many of these pollutants are antibiotics.
68 kinds of antibiotics found in China's water ways
"So far about 68 kinds of antibiotics have been detected in China's surface water, including sulfonamides, quinolones, tetracyclines, macrolides, Beta-lactam and other six major types," says the study. Seventy percent of China's drug production is of antibiotics, compared to 30 percent in Western nations.
Furthermore, another 90 pharmacological compounds are intermixing in the chemical debacle, including analgesics, anticonvulsants and anti-hypertensive drugs. Drinking China's water unfiltered is like consuming an entire cabinet-ful of drugs all in one shot.
On top of drug combinations, other pollutants lurk in the water, including synthetic hormones and disinfectants. It's no wonder that superbugs are evolving and infecting humans at an alarming rate. Faced with 68 strains of antibiotics and loads of disinfectant soap chemicals, bacteria have no choice but to evolve in new and abounding ways. Hospital infections are becoming hard to treat with those same antibiotics, since bacteria are overexposed to them.
Surface water of many Chinese rivers and lakes nearly 100 percent contaminated
The most disturbing element of the study was the voracious quantities of chemicals. Xinhua states that "in some rivers, every liter of sample water was found to have several hundred nanograms of antibiotics, compared with less than 20 nanograms in the water of developed countries."
In Guandgdong's Pearl and Huangpu Rivers, one antibiotic was detected at a rate of nearly 100 percent, indicating that all water flowing through Shanghai is contaminated. These extreme levels of pollutants make sense, since China is a chief world producer of cosmetic chemicals. Pumping out about 1,300 different kinds of body care concoctions, China leads the way in filling the world with synthetic garbage. On top of that, China produces over 33,000 tons of antibiotics and pharmaceuticals in its factories.
China's putrid pollution levels affecting the health of people around the world
The world's ravenous hunger for chemicals keeps China producing the formulas stealthily, while these antibiotics and toxic body care ingredients are discarded and passed into the environment.
The impact of these toxins on future generations of people is dire. Professor Yu Gang of Tsinghua University believes that pharmaceuticals and personal care products will be and are an invisible and silent bane to humans. "Once discharged into nature, [these chemicals] will be taken in by people via food or water and accumulate in our bodies, impacting on future generations."
Professor Yu Gang sees the massive consumption of antibiotics as a threat to the future treatment of diseases. "Antibiotics in water, when taken by people, will cause drug-resistance and reduce the effect of drugs in case of ailments."
One-fifth of Chinese farmland contaminated as pollution "pukes" out into the world
The horrid state of China's environment is deeply concerning. About a fifth of China's farmland is polluted, according to recent reports, with additional water scarcity problems lingering. Dangerous fine particulate matter (PM2.5) fills the cityscape and air. China has literally become the world's largest waste bucket, overflowing from the brim, spilling heavy metals, drugs and airborne pollutants out like a sick child puking up a McDonald's Happy Meal.
Sources for this article include
http://asiancorrespondent.com
http://www.theguardian.com
http://a.abcnews.go.com
http://science.naturalnews.com
http://science.naturalnews.com
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