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

Posted by BeauHD on from the worse-than-previously-thought dept.

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.

5 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. Re:i got to ask by Kuruk · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I would agree the care factor of the average human is zero.

  2. Widespread Waste Mismanagement by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    A while back we went to go look at a work-for-rent cabin outside of Willits, on a supposedly permacultural demonstration farm. Turned out the owner had workshops there, and she had attendees shit in buckets in an outhouse, then literally buried the shit in a hole next to the river that some neighbor dug for her with his backhoe. This person recently gave the keynote speech at a local farm conference. So as it turns out, both municipal waste management systems and hippies in the woods are shitting up our water systems. You might say it's end-to-end.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    1. Re: Widespread Waste Mismanagement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      More pharmaceuticals are passed via urine and feces than thrown down the drain. FFS

      It might have been different in the past where prescription drugs weren't the biggest problem, but it is now. And it isn't just prescription drugs but many plastics (found in everything from residential plumbing now to furniture finishes to disposable eyewear) as well.

      And biodegradable plastics don't vanish when they get broken down, they just get smaller and more easily enter waterways via everything from leaching out of landfills to rain that has originated on heavily trafficked lakes and rivers.

  3. You may not be old enough to remember by bobstreo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    when rivers feeding the Great Lakes used to catch fire?

    I mean drugs in the water are bad, but at least the fish get a nice buzz. /s

    For the interested:

    https://www.environmentalcounc...

  4. Deniers by sdinfoserv · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If you can't convince the GOP global warming is real, corporations are not people and trickle down economics is a complete failure - this is just back ground babble.