Dr. Dalma Martinović Weigelt, a University of St. Thomas College of Arts and Sciences biology professor, spoke with Chemical and Engineering News about how human medicines are quietly affecting aquatic ecosystems. She explained that even low levels of pharmaceuticals can alter fish behavior and survival in unexpected ways. Martinović Weigelt said these hidden impacts are driving scientists to better understand and reduce pharmaceutical pollution in waterways.
From the article:
... Scientists have documented a growing breadth of chemicals over time, which (ecotoxicologist Alistair Bruce Alleyne) Boxall suspects will continue to increase as dozens of new compounds are being introduced to markets every year. Experts also expect the overall concentrations of such compounds to increase over the coming decades as medicine demand rises along with an aging global population. “If we carry on as we are,” Boxall says, “then the levels of pharmaceuticals are likely to go up.”
The good news is that many of the most severe effects of pharmaceuticals that have been documented in lab studies – death, deformation, and other maladies – generally occur only at doses that aquatic organisms would not normally encounter, notes ecotoxicologist Dalma Martinović-Weigelt of the University of St. Thomas, Minnesota. After all, “Pharmaceuticals have been carefully designed not to outright kill us.”
But more ecologically realistic studies are uncovering other effects on aquatic life. The implants used for Bertram’s salmon were designed to release 50 µg of pharmaceuticals per gram of implant material into each fish over the duration of their migration. ...
