In a perfect world, medicines would become inactive in our bodies after they’ve done their jobs, and leave nothing to cause harm. The opposite is true. Often, chemical reactions in the body convert all or part of the medicine we consume to other compounds which are eliminated into the environment. Sometimes the medicine leaves the body unchanged where it eventually can accumulate in the water supply.
A story in AmericanRivers.org points reports on mounting concern about the presence of pharmaceuticals and personal care products, such as cosmetics, in the Nation’s streams and rivers. In 2002 the United States Geological Survey (USGS.gov) found, on average, seven chemical compounds in the streams they surveyed. In 2008, the Associated Press reported on an array of pharmaceuticals, from pain killers to antibiotics to mood-stabilizers, in the drinking water of 24 major metropolitan water suppliers.
The AmericanRivers.org article reported, “American drug consumption has increased rapidly in recent years, and Americans fill 3.7 Billion prescriptions every year. The chemicals in these drugs end up in waterways after being excreted from the body or when unused medication is flushed down the toilet.
“Most municipal sewage treatment facilities do not remove the pharmaceutical compounds from your water, and major upgrades would be required to do so.”
In recent years we are finding increased resistance to antibiotics in all countries. Although it is most often associated with the excessive use of antibiotics by consumers and the food production industry, there is evidence that other, non-antibiotic drugs are strengthening toxic bacteria, making them more resistant to all antibiotics.
MRSA (Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus) is responsible for several difficult-to-treat infections. Those with active MRSA infections are treated aggressively with antibiotics and can be cured of the infection. The treatments are effective, but the MRSA but comes back. Even when the active infections go away, a victim still can have MRSA bacteria on the skin and in the nose. The person is now a carrier of MRSA and the cycle continues.
To complicate the issue of bacterial resistance, researchers from the University of Queensland in Australia have determined that a popular antidepressant, fluoxetine, can increase resistance to antibiotics. Fluoxetine is the active ingredient in Prozac, one of the oldest and most popular SSRI drugs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor).
Researchers exposed bacteria to various concentrations of fluoxetine for 30 days. Afterward, the mutated bacteria were allowed to multiply and were treated with an antibiotic. These mutated bacteria had a greatly-increased resistance to antibiotics, up to 50 Million-fold compared to the control. The stronger the concentration of fluoxetine, the faster the bacteria mutated and became resistant.
Up to 11% of the fluoxetine in medication travels through the body unchanged and enters the environment by way of the sewer system. The researchers reported, “This discovery provides strong evidence that fluoxetine directly causes multi-antibiotic resistance through genetic mutation.”
That doesn’t mean everyone needs to stop taking fluoxetine immediately. However, it does demonstrate there are areas other than antibiotic use that need to be looked at.
“[Fluoxetine] previously has been an invisible factor in the spread of antibiotic resistance,” said researcher Min Jin, “but we should consider this a warning.”
What steps should be taken to head off the potential catastrophe from resistant bacteria? First, reduce the rampant use of antibiotics for humans and food animals. Next, stop flushing unused drugs down the toilet or sending them to landfills. Finally, increase efforts to completely destroy excess drugs, chemicals, and even plastics.
I suggest the time has come to seriously reconsider how we can safely incinerate all our waste.
Larry Frieders is a pharmacist in Aurora who had a book published, The Undruggist: Book One, A Tale of Modern Apothecary and Wellness. He can be reached at thecompounder.com/ask-larry or www.facebook.com/thecompounder.