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While many of us are aware of the environmental impact of large-scale pollutants like fossil fuels and microplastics, researchers have now raised the chilling reality that our pharmaceutical medications are also contributing to global environmental disasters.

While illegal drugs also form part of this growing concern over ‘pharmaceutical ingredient pollution,’ prescribed medications like anti-depressants and contraceptives have been shown to have an increasingly concerning impact on biodiversity and the survival of certain animal species.

For example, female starlings exposed to antidepressants like Prozac, which finds its way into sewage waterways, become less attractive to potential mates. Male birds, in turn, exhibit more aggressive behaviour and sing less to dosed-up potential mates than their drug-free counterparts.

One of the most concerning impacts has now been observed in fish populations. Contraceptive pills have caused sex reversal in some fish, leading to population collapses and local extinction events as male fish develop female organs.

Michael Bertram, an assistant professor at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, is one of the many scientists warning the world that pharmaceutical waste has significant consequences for wildlife. Animals exposed to pharmaceutical discharges in their ecosystems could, in turn, also produce unintended consequences for humans.

“Active pharmaceutical ingredients are found in waterways all around the globe, including in organisms that we might eat,” Bertram explained.

“Drugs must be designed to not only be effective and safe, but also to have a reduced potential risk to wildlife.”

In a paper published in the Journal Nature Sustainability on Wednesday, Bertram and his team of researchers urge the pharmaceutical industry to drastically reform drug design to make compounds ‘greener’.

The research paper further explains that multiple pathways for these chemicals to enter the environment exist, with Bertram outlining some of the most notable ways in which these kinds of pollutants find their way into wildlife spaces:

“If there is inadequate treatment of pharmaceuticals being released during drug production, that’s one way. Another is during use. When a human takes a pill, not all of that drug is broken down inside our bodies and so through our excrement, the effluent is released directly into the environment.”

Drugs such as caffeine, anti-anxiety medications, antidepressants, and antipsychotics are all entering ecosystems, as are illegal drugs like cocaine and methamphetamine. That’s not a cocktail you want in your local bubbling brook.

Bertram’s research shows that even something like an anti-inflammatory can severely impact biodiversity. Diclofenac, a common anti-inflammatory routinely given to cattle in South Asia, has caused India’s vulture population to fall by more than 97 percent between 1992 and 2007. This subsequently led to a surge in rabies cases from dogs feeding on cattle carcasses that the birds no longer consumed.

Paradoxically, it is the very characteristic that makes pharmaceuticals effective in human and animal patients – having biological effects at low doses – that also makes them particularly hazardous as environmental pollutants.

Additionally, a recent toxicology study measuring 61 different drugs across 104 countries from rivers in 1 052 locations has added to researchers’ knowledge of just how pervasive this environmental issue has become. The study found that 43.5 percent of the sites had traces of at least one drug above safe levels for ecological health.

On top of that, this active pharmaceutical ingredient pollution is occurring against a backdrop of other pressures on biodiversity, including global climate crises, habitat destruction and overconsumption.

With this in mind, it makes sense that researchers like Bertram are vehemently pushing for pharmacists, physicians, nurses, and vets to be properly trained on the potential environmental impact of medicines. Concerned parties also want more policies put in place regarding the rate at which drug compounds dissolve, as well as more stringent wastewater management.

Gorka Orive, a scientist and professor of pharmacy at the University of the Basque Country, who co-authored the above toxicology study, is adamant that environmentally-conscious pharmaceutical production means that everyone benefits, including us selfish humans, not just the poor drug-addled starlings.

“Greener drugs reduce the potential for pollution throughout the entire cycle. Drugs must be designed to not only be effective and safe, but also to have a reduced potential risk to wildlife and human health when present in the environment.”

We’re all in this together, so next time you’re thinking of flushing your Prozac down the drain, best not. Keep those dwelms out of our rivers.

[source:motherjones]