Painkillers, antibiotics, steroid hormones and contraceptives – this is not the entire list of medicines that are found in the seas, lakes and rivers. The source of drugs is sewage, since more than half of “used” drugs leave the body in a biologically active form, that is, they practically do not lose their properties.
A new study of pharmaceutical pollution in the world’s rivers has found that more than a quarter of the rivers analyzed contain potentially toxic doses of pharmaceuticals. The authors assessed 1,052 sampling sites along 258 rivers in 104 countries from every continent on Earth, providing a “pharmaceutical fingerprint” for areas home to 471.4 million people. In only two places, scientists did not find any infections at all: in Iceland and in the village of Yanomami in Venezuela, where local residents do not use modern medicines, Vesti.ru reports.
In the Black Sea, in water samples, scientists found components of cosmetics, including sunscreens, that do not dissolve in water. They have received such widespread use that they are now constantly present in sea and ocean waters. Metabolites of ibuprofen and diclofenac were also found in samples from the Black Sea. It has been proven that the breakdown products of ibuprofen are even more toxic than the drug itself. Ibuprofen affects humans; its metabolites are excreted from the body and enter seawater with sewage.
Residues of medicines are found in water bodies of the Minsk region in Belarus, as reported on the website of the Federation of Trade Unions of Belarus. As experts explain, wastewater treatment plants are not able to capture drug molecules, and it turns out that the remains of medical drugs inevitably end up in wastewater, rivers, and may end up in drinking water.
When ingested over many years, even in small quantities, these drugs cause serious harm to health. Thus, drugs intended for weight loss disrupt metabolism, especially in children. They have a detrimental effect on the puberty of 11-13 year old girls, who require a certain supply of fat for normal development during this period. Steroid hormones and contraceptive drugs cause disruptions in the functioning of the reproductive system in men and women, disrupt their reproductive function, and in some cases can exhibit carcinogenic effects, contributing to the development of breast cancer, prostate cancer, etc., writes the Kommersant newspaper.
Shen Schneider from the University of Michigan, in the journal Toxicological Chemistry of Aquatic Ecosystems, reports that the concentrations of female sex hormones (estradiol and its analogues) in some areas of the Great Lakes are so significant that the body of male fish begins to produce proteins characteristic only of fish -females at the time of reproduction.
Danish scientists Hallin-Sorensen and his colleagues from Copenhagen, exploring closed reservoirs of Northern European countries, where wastewater enriched with antibiotics from large hospitals and clinics was dumped for a long time, scientists discovered deep changes at the genetic level in some species of marine animals.
Laboratory workers in the German city of Wiesbaden tested German groundwater for the presence of only sixty of the most common drugs in Europe. And imagine their amazement when in any of the water samples taken for analysis they were able to detect more than thirty of them in concentrations hazardous to health. Among them are sleeping pills, cardiovascular drugs, contraceptive and antiepileptic drugs, antibiotics and even contrast agents used in x-ray diagnostics.
Medicines also enter the bodies of insects and animals living near water bodies. Researchers from Australia have identified traces of large amounts of pharmaceuticals in insects living in and around Melbourne’s waterways. According to scientists, antidepressants and other drugs can also enter the bodies of animals that feed on these insects, primarily platypuses. 66 drugs were also discovered in the bodies of spiders living along the banks of these rivers. Consequently, they came to the spiders from eaten insects and can continue to spread through food chains.