Returning Unused Prescription Drugs -- SATURDAY, Oct 29

[Virginia Johnson]

WHERE:

WASHINGTON METROPOLITAN POLICE DEPT THIRD POLICE DISTRICT
1620 V STREET, NW WASHINGTON DC, 20009

The Drug Enforcement Administration will host its third National Prescription
Drug Take Back Day on Saturday. And scientists are urging residents to pitch in
to protect area waterways.

"The synthetic estrogen added to birth control pills -- we know that can get out
into the environment through waste water treatment effluent," says Vicki Blazer,
a biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. "Exposure to that has been
associated with intersex or the production of immature eggs within the testes of
the fish."

She says antidepressants are also seeping into waterways, and into the bodies of
fish who live there: "The scary thing is that when we look for some of those
things not only are we finding them in the water, and five to seven different
antidepressants in the water, but in New York and Iowa we've actually taken out
fish brains and had them analyzed for antidepressants and we find them in the
brains of the fish," she says.

So organizers are urging people to take part in National Prescription Drug Take
Back Day. Collection sites throughout the region will be open from 10 a.m. to 2
p.m. on Saturday.