Healthy Skepticism Library item: 6331

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Publication type: news

Lafferty M.
Prozac pollutes Ohio waterways, menaces mussels
The Columbus Dispatch 2006 Sep 12

Full text:

The widely prescribed antidepressant Prozac is ending up in streams and
rivers, endangering freshwater mussels, scientists said yesterday.
Many species of mussels, including those in Ohio, are endangered or in
decline, already hammered by agricultural and industrial pollution.
Researchers have known since the 1960s that birth-control pills and other
drugs and chemicals that affect hormone systems can turn male fish into
females.
There are no regulations that require that drugs be screened from sewage
dumped into rivers and streams. The human body absorbs most drugs and
flushes the rest.
A new study by scientists at the federal government’s Hollings Marine
Laboratory in South Carolina shows that even minute amounts of Prozac cause
female freshwater mussels to release larvae early, dooming them because they
cannot live on their own. The research, discussed yesterday at the annual
American Chemical Society meeting in San Francisco, has disturbing
implications for an ambitious program to restore endangered mussels to many
Ohio streams, including the Big Darby Creek and the Scioto River.
“People have suggested the drug connection. The same thing has been
suggested for fish. There’s no reason why mussels should be exempted,” said
Tom Watters, an Ohio State University biologist who is directing the
reintroduction program.
“Those types of things are getting into the (sewage) system, and people
haven’t thought about them because the quantities are so small.”
In the study, scientists placed freshwater mussels into water containing
between 0.3 and 3,000 parts per million of Prozac and, within 48 hours, the
creatures had released their larvae.
“The results from this study were quite alarming,” said Rebecca Heltsley,
a scientist working on the project, in a statement.
In related research, University of Georgia scientists found that trace
amounts of Prozac found in fish and frogs delay development.
The immediate impact of the research could be that another layer of
testing, this time for drugs, might be needed before mussels are
reintroduced into Ohio’s streams, Watters said.
Drugs, especially those that mimic hormones, are an increasing worry for
drinkingwater specialists.
In her book Silent Spring, Rachel Carson described how the banned
pesticide DDT, which affects the endocrine system, caused birds’ egg shells
to be so thin that they easily broke.
“The reproductive problems are nightmarish,” said Robert Masters, of the
Columbusbased National Ground Water Association.
PCBs, which mimic hormones, are banned, but there is no requirement to
remove drugs from sewage before effluent is returned to a stream, he said.
“These are showing up quite commonly in almost all sewage,” Masters said.
“At outflows below sewage plants, scientists are finding close to 100
percent female downstream where there was a 50-60 percent mix upstream.”
Treatment processes can remove drugs from waste streams, but they are
expensive and add to water bills, Masters said.
But with a species on the brink, mandates just might come, he said.
mlafferty@dispatch.com