Pharma as a major polluter

[Chuck]

Ninety-five percent of Gyps vultures in India and 90 percent in Pakistan have died since the early 1990s, due primarily to exposure to diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory and arthritis drug.

Sonia Shah - YALE - Apr 15, 2010

So how do we dispose medication if we can't flush it down? --Ed.

The standard that new drugs be safe for human consumption was first enshrined in U.S. regulations in 1938, after an antibacterial drug dissolved in a poisonous solvent killed 100 children. Now, armed with a range of evidence suggesting that wildlife and human health may be threatened by pharmaceutical residues that escape into waterways and elsewhere, a growing band of concerned ecotoxicologists and environmental chemists are calling for yet another standard for new medications: that they be designed to be safe for the environment.

The movement for “green pharmacy,” as it has been dubbed, has grown as new technology has allowed scientists to discern the presence of chemicals in the environment at minute concentrations, revealing the wide dispersal of human and veterinary drugs across the planet. In recent years, scientists have detected trace amounts of more than 150 different human and veterinary medicines in environments as far afield as the Arctic. Eighty percent of the U.S.’s streams and nearly a quarter of the nation’s groundwater sampled by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) has been found to be contaminated with a variety of medications.... [Read More]

[WriConsult]

Please never flush medications!! Ideally they should be taken to your local hazardous waste processing facility, but that often isn't feasible. Versus flushing, it's still far preferable to simply send them to the landfill, preferably in their sealed containers if they are prescription meds.

A year or two ago I read that we have measurable caffeine in our local waterways - even small streams. Obviously that's not caused by improper disposal. Many medications pass through our urine into waterways. Our drug-addled lifestyle has unexpected consequences.

[xcel]

Hi Dan:

___Do you have more links to what is really going on with this? It sounds a lot worse than what I had expected.

___Thanks in advance.

___Wayne

[Chuck]

I can see this as a future story:

• New hire only needs to pass drug test
• Applicant flunks drug test
• Everybody is astonished as applicant is of a squeak-clean upbringing that echewed drugs and liqour
• On a second look, the drinking water contaminated the drug test

[WriConsult]

Originally Posted by xcel

Hi Dan:

___Do you have more links to what is really going on with this? It sounds a lot worse than what I had expected.

___Thanks in advance.

___Wayne

A medicine cabinet runs through it
Drugs found in water supplies of nation's largest cities, including Portland
Tualatin River and creeks contain traces of caffeine and medications

[phoebeisis]

Hmmm, usually folks are advised to flush meds.Eventually most meds you actually take are flushed-after a certain amount of metabolizing of course.

I suppose you could burn excess meds- turn them into CO2,H20,NxOx, sulfur compounds etc?? Put a propane torch to them maybe??

Take a hot plate outside-put the pulverized med on a junk pot-just heat it until it turns to a cinder?? Wouldn't suggest taking a whiff of the vapor.

There just isn't any good way to get rid of it. Heating it to a high temp will certainly turn it into something less active, but you have to be careful doing it-don't sniff the vapors-do it outside.

Charlie
PS Most of the meds in this class-NSAID- are going to be used less in humans because many of them increase your risk for having a heart attack. Aspirin, and Aleve don't increase your risk(ASA decreases your risk-aleve is neutral) the rest Ibuprofen etc probably increase your risk. Intially it was thought just the really specific NSAIDs(that were supposed to be easier on your stomach) increase the MI risk, but it looks like most of them do.

[Tochatihu]

Pleanty of bad news is available by web searching

environmental contamination pharmaceuticals

or simalar targets.

DAS

[Yaris Hilton]

The vultures also pick up diclofenac from the Zoroastrian funeral custom of exposing bodies to the elements. It's the most widely used painkiller in that part of the world, and most people get it before they die. It's a good medicine, nothing's wrong with using it. But exposing carcasses, human or animal, to the vultures exposes them to whatever medicines they were given before death. Blaming the pharmaceutical manufacturers for this particular problem is not right.

[Chuck]

I've heard stories that morticians need only half the preservatives they once did on the deceased.

[Yaris Hilton]

It was overkill, anyway.