Occurence and ecotoxological effects of residual pharmaceuticals on aquatic environment

Abstract

According to the monitoring studies, th pharmaceutical compounds (PHCs) are found in the most water sources, especially in wastewaters and surface waters. Although, they are they are found in low concentrations (from ng/L to µg/L) these substances may represent a real danger to aquatic ecosystems. In this work we tried to find the answer to the question: "Have the pharmaceuticals toxic effects on aquatic ecosystems?". Over 80 active PHCs have been detected in rivers and lakes in Austria, Brazil, Canada, Norway, Ukraine, USA. In Romania, the study of the PHCs contamination of the aquatic environment strted recently. There are some investigations in surface waters (Somes River).Fifteen compounds including nervous stimulants, anti-rheumatic, anti-epileptic, analgesic, disinfectant and anticoagulant drugs were detected in concentrations ranging from the 30 ng/L to 10 µg/L, using GC/MS technique (Moldovan , 2006). Since the increasing of drugs environmental discahrges represent a seroius threat for human and animal health, the worldwide organizations such European Medinices Agency (EMEA) and US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), have developed and implemented various environmental risk assessment guidelines (Fent et al., 2006). In 2006, EMEA have published the Guideline of Environmental Risk Assessment of medicinal products for human use that impose the assessment of acute and chronic effect of new pharmaceutical chemicals (EMEA, 2006; Straub, 2001). Due to thelac k of European and international environmental legislation concerning the admissible limits of these compounds in wastewaters and surface waters, the municpal WWTPs and medicinal producers are not constrained to discahrge wastewater effluents without PHCs contamination. The aim of the present work was to assess the effects of 10 PHCs (analgesics, antiepileptic drug, nervous stimulant and antibiotics) an aquatic organisms and preliminary risk assessment in Romanian surface waters according to actual international norms and base on our toxicity and monitoring data and from literature.