Drug Pollution In Rivers Reaching Damaging Levels For Animals and Ecosystems, Scientists Warn (independent.co.uk)

pgmrdlm shares a report from The Independent: Medicines including antibiotics and epilepsy drugs are increasingly being found in the world's rivers at concentrations that can damage ecosystems, a study has shown. Dutch researchers developed a model for estimating concentrations of drugs in the world's fresh water systems to predict where they could cause the most harm to the food web. The study, published in Environmental Research Letters, focuses on two particular drugs: antibiotic ciprofloxacin and anti-epileptic drug carbamazepine. Between 1995 and 2015 it found that rising concentrations of the drugs and the increasing number of water tables affected meant the risks to aquatic ecosystems are 10 to 20 times higher than two decades earlier.

Carbamazepine has been linked to disrupting the development of fish eggs and shellfish digestive processes, and the study found potential risks were most pronounced in arid areas with a few major streams. The risks were much more widespread for ciprofloxacin, with 223 of 449 ecosystems tested showing a significant risk increase. More worrying still, when [the researchers] compared their predictions to samples from four river systems they found their model was underestimating the risk. Pharmaceutical residues can enter these fresh water systems through waste water from poorly maintained sewer systems, or from run-off over fields for drugs used in livestock.

Comments

Antibiotic resistance

[manu0601]

Do not be surprise we see antibiotic resistance. First we gave antibiotic to cattle just in case, and then we pour some into rivers. Many microbes will get exposed to it, and some will adapt.

Re:Fight pollution, not climate change

[ilguido]

This is the kind of thing that is much easier to get public support for than the hockey sticks and whatnots.

I'd like to elaborate about this point. The eventual benefits of a CO2 reduction, for example, are very difficult to acknowledge, because they could take years to materialize, if at all. Instead, the benefits of cleaner water and cleaner air can be easily and quickly evaluated. That's why there wouldn't be as much controversy for pollution as there is for climate change policies.

Agriculture

[bradley13]

While other drugs may be an issue, the elephant in the room is agriculture. For vegetable, big ag uses all sort of pesticides and fertilizers that wind up polluting the water. For animals, they use antibiotics.

The antibiotics are not even meant to preserve animal health, although that's a nice side effect. Weirdly, animals on antibiotics gain weight more quickly, which is (afaik) the real motivation. But these antibiotics wind up in the waste, and from there in the runoff and in the rivers.

What we need is simple: an absolute prohibition on medicating animals that are not sick. Period.

p.s. It's a bit off-topic here, but: the prices for the antibiotics have to be cheap, for this to work economically. The exact same antibiotics for people are generally massively higher. An interesting comment on big pharma.