With pharmaceutical products being used at a staggering amount, discovered in sewage plants after being discarded through waste, these products are only being “partially metabolized”. This means after being disposed of by the body, these synthetic organic compounds are ending up in sewage plants not possessing the capabilities to eliminate them. With an increasing number of diverse compounds, these drugs can revert back to their original concentrations. Raises in the concentration of the substances left untreatable in sewage plants can cause damage to the environment and wildlife when it is then released back into the water system. Which discovered in the water for human consumption, “detected a cocktail of drugs at low concentrations (nanograms per litre), the long-term effect of which is unknown,” says Xavier Domenech, co-author of the study and a researcher at the Department of Chemistry of the UAB. UBA, Autonomous University of Barcelona, has since developed a tool, developed by Marc Ribera, to “determine the likelihood of drugs ending up in the environment” which allows the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) to evaluate future drug environmental risks before being introduced into the market. I believe this tool will expand into others countries and will potentially help reduce prospective environmental pollution. The only downfall to this tool not being utilized is that pharmaceutical companies could possibly feel threatened by this model concerning the approval of their drugs for marketing thus trying to impair the tools success with contradictions of the predictions the tool could create. This tool should be widely spread to other countries to prevent any more potential pollution to the environment and humans.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110728082302.htm
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