https://doi.org/10.15255/KUI.2016.013
Published: Kem. Ind. 66 (3-4) (2017) 135–144
Paper reference number: KUI-13/2016
Paper type: Review
Download paper:  PDF

Pharmacoecology – The Environmental Fate of Pharmaceuticals

V. Vrček

Abstract

Most drugs, as used for prevention or therapy, end up in wastewaters, rivers, lakes, and seas, but also in drinking water. Hundreds of analytical studies have been published recently reporting that all therapeutic classes are present in the environment. Drug concentrations in the environment are very small, but still the health risk exists, as all pharmaceuticals have been designed to induce biological effects at low doses. The presence of a particular drug in the environment is directly connected to its usage intensity. Therefore, psychopharmaceuticals, such as carbamazepine, are the most frequent environmental contaminants. The detection of ever-increasing drug doses in the environment is not due to advances in analytical chemistry and instrumentation, but is a result of the progressive use of medications. Transformation metabolites present an additional threat of drugs in the environment. A number of pharmaceuticals can undergo rearrangements, induced by light or wastewater treatment, resulting in structures for which no scientific data is available. Some metabolites can be more toxic than their parent compounds. In addition, the transformed products can resist the biodegradation process and build up in the environment. These metabolites are not included in the official environmental risk assessment of nearly all pharmaceuticals. The strong evidence for ecological disasters promoted by pharmaceuticals can be located in publications reporting the collapse of a fish population in Northern America, due to synthetic estrogen in water, or the loss of vultures in the Indian subcontinent due to veterinary applications of Voltaren. The environmental cost of drugs has been determined, and therefore all debates about too low or insufficient doses of pharmaceuticals in the ecosystem come too late. The drug effects on life organisms have already occurred, and similar impacts on humans are expected.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Keywords

pharmaceuticals, environment, chemical fate, wastewaters, medicalization