Worlds Highest Drug Levels Entering India Stream
Those Indian factories produce drugs for much of the world, including many Americans. The result: Some of Indias poor are unwittingly consuming an array of chemicals that may be harmful, and could lead to the proliferation of drug-resistant bacteria.
“If you take a bath there, then you have all the antibiotics you need for treatment,” said chemist Klaus Kuemmerer at the University of Freiburg Medical Center in Germany, an expert on drug resistance in the environment who did not participate in the research. “If you just swallow a few gasps of water, youre treated for everything. The question is for how long?”
Last year, The Associated Press reported that trace concentrations of pharmaceuticals had been found in drinking water provided to at least 46 million Americans. But the wastewater downstream from the Indian plants contained 150 times the highest levels detected in the U.S.
At first, Joakim Larsson, an environmental scientist at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, questioned whether 100 pounds a day of ciprofloxacin could really be running into the stream. The researcher was so baffled by the unprecedented results he sent the samples to a second lab for independent analysis.
When those reports came back with similarly record-high levels, Larsson knew he was looking at a potentially serious situation. After all, some villagers fish in the streams tributaries, while others drink from wells nearby. Livestock also depend on these watering holes.
Some locals long believed drugs were seeping into their drinking water, and new data from Larssons study presented at a U.S. scientific conference in November confirmed their suspicions. Ciprofloxacin, the antibiotic, and the popular antihistamine cetirizine had the highest levels in the wells of six villages tested. Both drugs measured far below a human dose, but the results were still alarming.
“We dont have any other source, so were drinking it,” said R. Durgamma, a mother of four, sitting on the steps of her crude mud home in a bright flowered sari a few miles downstream from the treatment plant. High drug concentrations were recently found in her well water. “When the local leaders come, we offer them water and they wont take it.”
Pharmaceutical contamination is an emerging concern worldwide. In its series of articles, AP documented the commonplace presence of minute concentrations of pharmaceuticals in U.S. drinking water supplies. The AP also found that trace concentrations of pharmaceuticals were almost ubiquitous in rivers, lakes and streams.
The medicines are excreted without being fully metabolized by people who take them, while hospitals and long-term care facilities annually flush millions of pounds of unused pills down the drain. Until Larssons research, there had been widespread consensus among researchers that drug makers were not a source.
The consequences of the India studies are worrisome.
As the AP reported last year, researchers are finding that human cells fail to grow normally in the laboratory when exposed to trace concentrations of certain pharmaceuticals. Some waterborne drugs also promote antibiotic-resistant germs, especially when – as in India – they are mixed with bacteria in human sewage. Even extremely diluted concentrations of drug residues harm the reproductive systems of fish, frogs and other aquatic species in the wild.
The discovery of this contamination raises two key issues for researchers and policy makers: the amount of pollution and its source. Experts say one of the biggest concerns for humans is whether the discharge from the wastewater treatment facility is spawning drug resistance.
“Not only is there the danger of antibiotic-resistant bacteria evolving; the entire biological food web could be affected,” said Stan Cox, senior scientist at the Land Institute, a nonprofit agriculture research center in Salina, Kan. Cox has studied and written about pharmaceutical pollution in Patancheru. “If Cipro is so widespread, it is likely that other drugs are out in the environment and getting into peoples bodies.”
Before Larssons team tested the water at Patancheru Enviro Tech Ltd. plant, researchers largely attributed the source of drugs in water to their use, rather than their manufacture.
In the U.S., the EPA says there are “well defined and controlled” limits to the amount of pharmaceutical waste emitted by drug makers.
Indias environmental protections are being met at Patancheru, says Rajeshwar Tiwari, who heads the areas pollution control board. And while he says regulations have tightened since Larssons initial research, screening for pharmaceutical residue at the end of the treatment process is not required.
Source: tnjac