The new AP report on drugs in drinking water (see link below) is a commendable, thorough effort to investigate the problem, but this information has been widely known in the drinking water community for years.  As I point out in my book, it is inevitable that essentially every chemical produced by humans will wind up in drinking water in some concentration.  Perhaps the greatest scandal is not the presence of the drugs, but rather the fact that water utilities, most of them publicly owned, have tested for them, found them, and felt no compulsion to reveal that information to the public.

The consequences of this remain to be seen, but we should be extremely cautious in dismissing levels in the parts per billion or even parts per trillion range as inconsequential.  The concentration of estradiol in the blood required to turn a male into a female is less than 100 parts per trillion!

(http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/P/PHARMAWATER_I?SITE=MAFIT&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT)