Prescription drugs are a common ingredient in the water consumed in many U. S. towns/cities. We’ve had warnings where I live, but nothing has been done.
Originally posted on strange behaviors:
(Photo: UGA College of Ag and Environmental Sciences/Flickr)
Researchers have known for more than a decade that the pharmaceuticals we consume tend to turn up secondhand in wildlife–sometimes with horrible effects.
Chemical hormones in birth control pills, for instance, pass into the urine and are released via municipal sewage plants into the environment, where they can become potent endocrine disruptors. These drugs alter the reproductive physiology and behavior of fish downstream, with impacts including feminized or intersex males. But so far, society’s reaction has largely been a collective shrug: Those are fish, not people. Why should we care? Attempts to limit drug pollution have mostly gone nowhere.
A new study in the journal Food Chemistry should shake us out of our complacency. Chemical analyst M. Abdul Mottaleb and his team at Northwest Missouri State University went to fish counters at local supermarkets and purchased fillets of 14 different species. Then…
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