Environmental Impact of Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products - Current Research

Current Research

Starting in the mid-1960s, ecologists and toxicologists began to express concern about the potential adverse effects of pharmaceuticals in the water supply, but it wasn’t until a decade later that the presence of pharmaceuticals in water was well documented. Studies in 1975 and 1977 found clofibric and salicylic acids at trace concentrations in treated water. Widespread concern about and research into the effect of PPCPs largely started in the early 1990s. Until this time, PPCPs were largely ignored because of their relative solubility and containment in waterways compared to conventional pollutants like agrochemicals, industrial chemicals, and industrial waste and byproducts. Since then, a great deal of attention has been directed to the ecological and physiological risk associated with pharmaceutical compounds and their metabolites in water and the environment. In the last decade, most research in this area has focused on steroid hormones and antibiotics. There is concern that steroid hormones may act as endocrine disruptors. Some research suggests that concentrations of ethinylestradiol, an estrogen used in oral contraceptive medications and one of the most commonly prescribed pharmaceuticals, can cause endocrine disruption in aquatic and amphibian wildlife in concentrations as low as 1 ng/L.

Current research on PPCPs aims to answer these questions:

• What is the impact of exposure to low levels of PPCPs over time?
• What is the impact of exposure to mixtures of chemicals?
• Are the impacts acute (short-term) or chronic (long-term)?
• Are certain populations, such as the elderly, very young, or immuno-compromised, more vulnerable to the impacts of these compounds?
• What is the impact of PPCPs on bacterial, fungal, and aquatic life?
• Are the levels of antibiotics in the aquatic environment sufficient to promote antibiotic resistance?
• What is the impact of exposure to steroid hormones on animal and human populations?