Medication pollution alert
September 26, 2013
Health professionals should
be “aware of the need for
pharmaceuticals to be managed as
organic and persistent pollutants,”
with an article in the Medical
Journal of Australia this month
urging a “national initiative to
reduce pharmaceutical pollution in
water supplies”.
The authors said that there is a
limited extent to which sewerage
and waste disposal systems can
deal with drugs, some of which are
highly stable even when washed
down the drain.
To make matters worse,
sometimes bacterial processes in
sewage treatment can produce
toxic breakdown products, such as
bacteria converting NSAID
(S)-naproxen to (R)-naproxen which
is highly toxic to the liver.
Hospitals and clinics constitute
point sources of these pollutants,
although naturally patients in the
community are also sources which
are much harder to monitor.
“In the first instance, tackling hot
spots in source control could make
significant inroads on the drug load
entering treatment plants - for
example, as much as 25% of all
human antibiotics are estimated to
be administered in hospitals,” the
report states.
Initiatives urged include better
housekeeping, discouraging the
emptying of syringes into sinks,
choosing less environmentally
persistent drugs where possible,
and establishing protocols to
reduce the release of drugs into the
environment.
CLICK HERE to view the report.
The above article was sent to subscribers in Pharmacy Daily's issue from 26 Sep 13To see the full newsletter, see the embedded issue below or CLICK HERE to download Pharmacy Daily from 26 Sep 13
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