Tag Archives: antidepressants
Waste Water Treatment Plants: Mussels off the coast of Seattle test positive for opioids
As more and more American communities grapple with opioid addiction, the human toll of the epidemic has grown in both scope and severity. And now, scientists at the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife have found evidence that drug’s impact has literally flowed downstream to affect marine life, as well.,,, In three of the 18 locations, the mussels then tested positive for trace amounts of oxycodone. How, you ask? When humans ingest opioids like oxycodone, they ultimately end up excreting traces of the drugs into the toilet. Those chemicals then end up in wastewater. And while many contaminants are filtered out of wastewater before it’s released into the oceans, wastewater management systems can’t entirely filter out drugs. Thus, opioids, antidepressants, the common chemotherapy drug Melphalan — the mussels tested positive for all of them. >click to read<08:04
They say The Sky isn’t Falling. I disagree! The sky has fallen, and Fishermen are paying for it. Pharmaceuticals in our water
There’s no way around it, the headlines are disturbing. They describe fish and birds responding with altered behavior and reproductive systems to antidepressants, diabetes medication, and other psychoactive or hormonally active drugs at concentrations found in the environment. About 90% of pharmaceuticals found in the environment arrive there after being excreted. Wastewater treatment plants, meanwhile, are exploring possibilities for boosting their ability to remove pharmaceuticals from sewage. Read the rest here 13:49
