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"Tissue analyses detected up to 69 different pharmaceutical compounds in aquatic insects and up to 66 compounds in riparian spiders. Drug concentrations were the highest in invertebrates collected downstream of wastewater treatment facilities or in heavily populated areas with potential septic tank leakage. On average, pharmaceutical concentrations at these sites were 10 to 100 times higher than less contaminated sites."
What a brilliant example of pop-sciencefraud spin. To give an example of how worthless unreferenced claims like this are, consider:
I meticulously collect 22 equal size samples of radioactive roach poop. I have two equal sized shielded rooms with a container of elephant poo in each. On the first day of my experiment I place one standardized roach poop in a pint bottle of pure elephant poo in one room, and one in a fifty gallon jug of elephant poo in the other room. I then measure the radiation of each at a distance of five meters to get a baseline.
The following day, I add ten SRPs to each container and again measure radiation levels. I then run around the lab elated at my success, screaming that both samples are ten times as contaminated as the previous day. Procuring a grant from the famed "People Promoting the Elimination of All Poop" group, I go to Africa, put all 22 of my SRPs on a pile of elephant dung, stand back five meters, and publish an article on how Africa is twice as contaminated with SRPs than even my most outrageous lab experiment. My facts and math are flawless, and as a result of my scientific study thousands more people want to eliminate their poop. Only the less gullible suggest my study is full of s***.
I'm reminded of a famous quote by Aristotle - "Don't believe everything you read on the internet."
"Tissue analyses detected up to 69 different pharmaceutical compounds in aquatic insects and up to 66 compounds in riparian spiders. Drug concentrations were the highest in invertebrates collected downstream of wastewater treatment facilities or in heavily populated areas with potential septic tank leakage. On average, pharmaceutical concentrations at these sites were 10 to 100 times higher than less contaminated sites."
What a brilliant example of pop-sciencefraud spin. To give an example of how worthless unreferenced claims like this are, consider:
i'm not sure what the source of your indignation is. the statement is referenced. did you read the article?
sure looks to me like the pharmaceutical contamination found at wastewater sites (e.g., Brushy, Scotsmans) is easily 100 x what was found at Sasssafras and Lyrebird:
Quote:
I'm reminded of a famous quote by Aristotle - "Don't believe everything you read on the internet."
this is nature communications. it's a fairly well respected journal.
it's well established that pharmaceutical contamination is present. the real question to me is, what impact, if any, is it having on the insects/plants/animals that are exposed to it.
I'm reminded of a famous quote by Aristotle - "Don't believe everything you read on the internet."
Excellent post. Your example isn't as facetious as one might think. Eg- TreeHugger researchers actually put their "methane detectors" just 10 ft from the ani of cattle, then published panic over the "high concentration" of methane in the air. If they had placed them 100 ft away, nobody would care about their results and the grant money would have stopped flowing.
I just realized I mis-read the bar graph on drug levels in the cadis flies. They reported it as ng/ gm, while I thought it said ng/kg....That means the level of antidepressant found in the tissue was 10x higher than the usual dosage of drug, and most drugs are quickly degraded on "first pass" thru the liver, leaving only a small amount of drug actually getting to its target organ.....These caddis flies must have been living in the sewer pipe coming out of a mental institution specializing in depression with every patient on water restriction, or else the Aussies just aren't treating their sewage very well....This data is not reasonable. One has to seriously question its accuracy.
As far a "respected journal" goes, ethics is a thing of the past in science publication. Don't kid yourself, Ugga.
Your info on drug levels in water: 50,000ng/m^3 translates to 0.00005mg/ cc--ie- nothing other than an interesting observation with no meaning in the real world. A patient would have to drink 2 1/2 liters of "contaminated water" to get one 20 mg dose of drugs present at that concentration.
The high variation between sites suggests the problem is in the handling of the waste water, not the fact that drugs are put down the drain.
Last edited by guidoLaMoto; 11-16-2018 at 08:17 AM..
The high variation between sites suggests the problem is in the handling of the waste water, not the fact that drugs are put down the drain.
While some sections of my County have municipal sewage; many of us have our own systems (from old cesspools, to septic tanks and drain fields, to the newer sand mound systems). There are also new systems being introduced. With municipal systems there is so much affluent coming at them that they have to quickly treat and then release - is that the problem? With the rural systems I would think that many of these chemicals will break down before they make it back into the environment - at least that is my speculation.
These questions are good questions; but it is possible that, besides from the pharmaceutical industry, humans and how we package and what we eat could also be harmful to the environment: https://www.energeticnutrition.com/v...estrogens.html.
While that study talked about the contaminated cadis flies; does anybody have studies on contaminated platypuses? It would be hard to access the meaning of the cadis fly contamination without seeing the end results.
^^^ That article is another fine example of creating a panic to get more research funds. As it states, estrogens occur naturally in many foods we eat and always has. Why didn't the problems they suggest they create occur in the past? The foods were the same....Even tho estrogen is given as "growth hormone" to beef cattle, a serving of potatoes has 16x more estrogens than a serving of beef.
The estrogen like chemicals used in packaging probably cause no problems: their concentrations are at levels almost too low to measure. The foods we eat are much richer sources and they're not a problem.
i wasn't sure which forum was the best fit for this, one but this seems as good as any.
we are excreting a hell of a lot of different drugs into the environment that have unknown effects on the insects and animals that end up ingesting them.
Unknown? Maybe not so much.
" In one of the new studies, Tom Bean at the University of York and colleagues, showed that the common antidepressant fluoxetine, at the low levels expected in the environment, led starlings to feed less often during the key foraging times of sunrise and sunset. “Importantly, fluoxetine is not the only pharmaceutical, or indeed the only antidepressant, to be detected in the environment,” he said. “Mixtures of pharmaceuticals could potentially be more potent.”
Another new study, led by Karen Kidd at the University of New Brunswick, showed synthetic oestrogen used in the birth control pill not only wiped out fathead minnows in lakes used for experiments in Ontario, but also seriously disrupted the whole ecosystem. The lakes’ top predator – trout – declined by 23-42%, due to the loss of the minnow and other prey, while insects increased as they were no longer being eaten by the minnows."
" In one of the new studies, Tom Bean at the University of York and colleagues, showed that the common antidepressant fluoxetine, at the low levels expected in the environment, led starlings to feed less often during the key foraging times of sunrise and sunset. “Importantly, fluoxetine is not the only pharmaceutical, or indeed the only antidepressant, to be detected in the environment,” he said. “Mixtures of pharmaceuticals could potentially be more potent.”
Another new study, led by Karen Kidd at the University of New Brunswick, showed synthetic oestrogen used in the birth control pill not only wiped out fathead minnows in lakes used for experiments in Ontario, but also seriously disrupted the whole ecosystem. The lakes’ top predator – trout – declined by 23-42%, due to the loss of the minnow and other prey, while insects increased as they were no longer being eaten by the minnows."
What was the control group for the first study? Why are they so sure it MUST be fluoxetine that accounts for the behavior change?
In the second-- lakes used for experiments? What was the concentration of drugs used? What was the control? Most studies use unrealistically high exposure levels to "prove" their pre-conceived conclusions. No problem--> no new funding.
What was the control group for the first study? Why are they so sure it MUST be fluoxetine that accounts for the behavior change?
In the second-- lakes used for experiments? What was the concentration of drugs used? What was the control? Most studies use unrealistically high exposure levels to "prove" their pre-conceived conclusions. No problem--> no new funding.
Dunno about the first, but you could probably find out.
I'm reluctant to say anything based only on info provided by the usually obtuse science journalists, but a drug exposure measured in parts per Trillion causing some problem is more likely to be due to some exceptional sensitivity in the species under consideration than to some general problem in the environment or to some other factor. (ppt is a really low concentration for biological activity) As the article says, other species of fish weren't found to be suffering from it.
This is not to say we can be cavalier with our waste water, but with proper handling, any pharmaceuticals we use would be diluted to virtual oblivion before they reach the general circulation and the natural water cycle. Something's fishy with any study that says otherwise.
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