https://research.birmingham.ac.uk/portal/files/41988116/Anekwe_et_al_2017.pdf

Pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) in the freshwater aquatic environment

Occurrences and removal of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) in drinking water and water/sewage treatment plants: A review

Pharmaceuticals are known to occur widely in the environment of industrialized countries. In developing countries, more monitoring results have recently become available, but a concise picture of measured environmental concentrations (MECs) is still elusive. Through a comprehensive literature review of 1016 original publications and 150 review articles, the authors collected MECs for human and veterinary pharmaceutical substances reported worldwide in surface water, groundwater, tap/drinking water, manure, soil, and other environmental matrices in a comprehensive database. Due to the heterogeneity of the data sources, a simplified data quality assessment was conducted. The database reveals that pharmaceuticals or their transformation products have been detected in the environment of 71 countries covering all continents. These countries were then grouped into the 5 regions recognized by the United Nations (UN). In total, 631 different pharmaceutical substances were found at MECs above the detection limit of the respective analytical methods employed, revealing distinct regional patterns. Sixteen substances were detected in each of the 5 UN regions. For example, the anti-inflammatory drug diclofenac has been detected in environmental matrices in 50 countries, and concentrations found in several locations exceeded predicted no-effect concentrations. Urban wastewater seems to be the dominant emission pathway for pharmaceuticals globally, although emissions from industrial production, hospitals, agriculture, and aquaculture are important locally. The authors conclude that pharmaceuticals are a global challenge calling for multistakeholder approaches to prevent, reduce, and manage their entry into and presence in the environment, such as those being discussed under the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management, a UN Environment Program.

https://setac.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/etc.3339

Pharmaceuticals in the environment--Global occurrences and perspectives.

Pharmaceuticals and personal care products in the aquatic environment in China: a review.

Environmental pollution by pharmaceuticals is increasingly recognized as a major threat to aquatic ecosystems worldwide. A variety of pharmaceuticals enter waterways by way of treated wastewater effluents and remain biochemically active in aquatic systems. Several ecotoxicological studies have been done, but generally, little is known about the ecological effects of pharmaceuticals. Here we show that a benzodiazepine anxiolytic drug (oxazepam) alters behavior and feeding rate of wild European perch (Perca fluviatilis) at concentrations encountered in effluent-influenced surface waters. Individuals exposed to water with dilute drug concentrations (1.8 micrograms liter–1) exhibited increased activity, reduced sociality, and higher feeding rate. As such, our results show that anxiolytic drugs in surface waters alter animal behaviors that are known to have ecological and evolutionary consequences.

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/339/6121/814.full.pdf

Dilute concentrations of a psychiatric drug alter behavior of fish from natural populations.

Background: Over the past 10–15 years, a substantial amount of work has been done by the scientific, regulatory, and business communities to elucidate the effects and risks of pharmaceuticals and p...

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Pharmaceuticals and personal care products in the environment: what are the big questions?

Here, we present and evaluate a combined experimental and modeling approach for characterizing the uptake of ionizable chemicals from water and sediments into aquatic organisms under different pH conditions We illustrate and evaluate the approach for two pharmaceuticals (diclofenac and fluoxetine) and one personal care product ingredient (triclosan) for the oligochaete Lumbriculus variegatus Initially, experimental data on the uptake of the three chemicals at two pH values were fitted using a toxicokinetic model to derive uptake and depuration constants for the neutral and ionized species of each molecule The derived constants were then used to predict uptake from water and sediment for other pH conditions Evaluation of predictions against corresponding experimental data showed good predictions of uptake for all test chemicals from water for different pH conditions and reasonable predictions of uptake of fluoxetine and diclofenac from a sediment Predictions demonstrated that the level of uptake of th

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acs.est.7b01265

Novel Approach for Characterizing pH-Dependent Uptake of Ionizable Chemicals in Aquatic Organisms.

The present study investigated the route and degree of uptake of 2 ionizable pharmaceuticals (diclofenac and fluoxetine) and 1 ionizable compound used in personal care products (triclosan) into the sediment-dwelling worm Lumbriculus variegatus. Studies were done on complete worms (“feeding”) and worms where the head was absent (“nonfeeding”) using 14C-labeled ingredients. Biota sediment accumulation factors (BSAF), based on uptake of 14C, for feeding worms increased in the order fluoxetine (0.3) < diclofenac (0.5) < triclosan (9), which is correlated with a corresponding increase in log octanol–water partition coefficient. Biota sediment accumulation factor estimates are representative of maximum values because the degree of biotransformation in the worms was not quantified. Although no significant differences were seen between the uptake of diclofenac and that of fluoxetine in feeding and nonfeeding worms, uptake of the more hydrophobic antimicrobial, triclosan, into the feeding worms was significantly greater than that in the nonfeeding worms, with the 48-h BSAF for feeding worms being 36% higher than that for the nonfeeding worms. The results imply that dietary uptake contributes to the uptake of triclosan, which may be a result of the high hydrophobicity of the compound. Models that estimate exposure of ionizable substances may need to consider uptake from both the water column and food, particularly when assessing risks from dynamic exposures to organic contaminants. Environ Toxicol Chem 2015;9999:1–7. © 2015 SETAC

Routes of uptake of diclofenac, fluoxetine, and triclosan into sediment-dwelling worms

Here, we present and evaluate a combined experimental and modelling approach for characterising the uptake of ionisable chemicals from water and sediments into aquatic organisms under different pH conditions. We illustrate and evaluate the approach for two pharmaceuticals (diclofenac and fluoxetine) and one personal care product ingredient (triclosan) for the oligochaete Lumbriculus variegatus. Initially, experimental data on the uptake of the three chemicals at two pH values were fitted using a toxicokinetic model to derive uptake and depuration constants for the neutral and ionised species of each molecule. The derived constants were then used to predict uptake from water and sediment for other pH conditions. Evaluation of predictions against corresponding experimental data showed good predictions of uptake for all test chemicals from water for different pH conditions and reasonable predictions of uptake of fluoxetine and diclofenac from a sediment. Predictions demonstrated that the level of uptake of the study chemicals, across pH ranges in European streams, could differ by up to a factor of 3035. Overall, the approach could be extremely useful for assessing internal exposure of aquatic organisms across landscapes with differing pH. This could help support better characterisation of the risks of ionisable chemicals in the aquatic environment.

Maja V. Karlsson

Papers

Pharmaceuticals and personal care products in the environment: what are the big questions?

Novel Approach for Characterizing pH-Dependent Uptake of Ionizable Chemicals in Aquatic Organisms.

Routes of uptake of diclofenac, fluoxetine, and triclosan into sediment-dwelling worms

A novel approach for characterising pH-dependent uptake of ionisable chemicals in aquatic organisms