Prescription Meds Get Trapped In Disturbing Pee-To-Food-To-Pee Loop (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A study published Tuesday in Environmental Science and Technology is the first to validate the long-held suspicion that pharmaceuticals may get trapped in infinite pee-to-food-to-pee loops, exposing consumers to drug doses with unknown health effects. In a randomized, single-blind pilot study, researchers found that anti-convulsive epilepsy drug carbamazepine, which is released in urine, can accumulate in crops irrigated with recycled water -- treated sewage -- and end up in the urine of produce-eaters not on the drugs. While the amounts of the drug in produce-eater's pee were four orders of magnitude lower than what is seen in the pee of patients purposefully taking the drugs, researchers speculate that the trace amounts could still have health effects in some people, such as those with a genetic sensitivity to the drugs, pregnant women, children, and those who eat a lot of produce, such as vegetarians. And with the growing practice of reclaiming wastewater for crop irrigation -- particularly in places that face water shortages such as California, Israel, and Spain --- the produce contamination could become more common and more potent, the authors argue.

Comments

10,000 time reduction each time

[Anonymous Coward]

No they don't get trapped in a loop.

If I eat one of these prescription-laced carrots or whatever, I've got 1/10,000 (4 order of magnitude) less than the person who made that pee carrot. I will then contribute 1/10,000 of that, and someone will eat my pee and contribute 1/10,000 of THAT. By the third person, there is 1/1,000,000,000,000 and we're talking about homeopathic levels.

That's hardly 'trapped in a loop.'

Re:Going vegan

[Anonymous Coward]

Oxytocin is a 9 residue peptide. It is destroyed by GI proteins, precluding any possibility of systemic absorption when administered via the oral route.

Re:Vegetarians at risk.

[Attila Dimedici]

No, you wouldn't. The thing you are overlooking is that these drugs get into the water supply because humans pee them out. With vanishingly rare exceptions, chemicals which are in human urine do not bio-accumulate. The simple explanation of this is that chemicals which bio-accumulate do not cross the membrane filters used by the kidneys to filter blood and thus stay in the blood.
So, since these drugs do NOT build up in the human body to any significant extent, they will, also, not build up in the bodies of animals.Basically, plants will likely contain ALL of the drugs which they took up from the water for their entire life cycle (from germination to harvest) while animals will only have the drugs which were contained in their last meal or three.