Use the back button to return to your initial selection.

HOME |  THE NETWORKS |  CWN

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

European and Canadian researchers hope to arm their respective regulators with the knowledge they need to assess the risks posed by pharmaceuticals in our water.

Just how serious are the environmental and health risks posed by the growing volume and variety of anti-depressants, antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals showing up in our water supplies?

"That's the $60- million question now isn't it?" says Dr. Chris Metcalfe, a Canadian Water Network (CWN) researcher at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario.

Dr. Metcalfe is working with a dozen university and government researchers from across Canada on three-year project led by the European Union. The Environmental Risk Assessment of Pharmaceuticals (ERAPharm) project combines the expertise of 14 partners from seven European countries. Canada – through the CWN – is the only non-European country participating.

Dr. Metcalfe says that having a national organization like the CWN makes it easier for Canadian researchers to participate in international studies. "For me to put together a research consortium doesn't have as much cachet as working through the CWN," explains Dr. Metcalfe. "The CWN provides credibility and a mechanism by which we can focus our research activities under a national umbrella."

Dr. Thomas Knacker, ERAPharm's co-ordinator in Florsheim, Germany says having a national Centre of Excellence "ensures that interaction is possible with a large number of Canadian colleagues."

It also gives Canadian researchers – and ultimately Canadian regulators – an opportunity to learn from European countries, which have more experience studying pharmaceuticals in water.

"Pharmaceuticals in the environment are an issue for all so-called developed countries. Since resources for research are limited, it makes sense to co-ordinate these activities across continents," says Dr. Knacker. "This approach is also important for globally active industries which would benefit from harmonized environmental risk assessment schemes."

The ERAPharm study involves Germany, France, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Spain and Canada. It aims to improve the scientific basis and the methods for evaluating potential risks that human and veterinary pharmaceuticals pose to the environment. It will also recommend how EU regulators can better assess the risks that pharmaceuticals pose to the health of fish, wildlife and humans.

The results will be relevant to Canada as the federal government is considering approaches to regulate and assess pharmaceutical compounds. Provincial agencies also would benefit from a risk assessment process customized for pharmaceuticals.

Tests in Canada and other countries have confirmed that lakes, streams and even drinking water contain trace amounts of medications that pass through our own personal plumbing and into the sewer system. Once treated, this sewage sludge is commonly used as fertilizer on farmland. Further contributing to this bioactive stew are livestock injected with antibiotics and fertility hormones.

"We know these compounds are making their way out of sewage treatment plants and large-scale agricultural operations," says Dr. Metcalfe, who teaches environmental and resource studies at Trent. "They're getting into surface water and they're getting into drinking water in some cases. What we're missing is that risk assessment part – trying to figure out, do these compounds at low concentrations have the potential to have an impact on the environment or to human health?"

The dangers, if any, are not clear. The levels in water are small – a few parts per billion or trillion of the active ingredients found in anti-depressants, birth control pills, beta blockers, antibiotics and other commonly used medicines. But the long-term effects are unknown.

The Canadian research team is contributing to two studies. In one, researchers from Environment Canada, the University of Ottawa, University of Waterloo, University of Guelph, and Trent University are examining the effects of Prozac on fish. In the other project, Dr. Metcalfe and researchers from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and the University of York in the United Kingdom are studying the run-off of pharmaceuticals from sewage sludge applied to agricultural fields.

Dr. Alistair Boxall, who specializes in eco-chemistry at York University, says Canada brings valued scientific skills to the project, specifically analyses of pharmaceuticals in environmental matrices, experience in running large multidisciplinary field studies, and ecotoxicological expertise.

"By pooling resources and expertise we are able to deliver a lot more than if we both did things separately," says Dr. Boxall. "I hope this current collaboration will lead to longer term relationships in the future."

By the end of the ERAPharm project, researchers will have more detailed data on four compounds: Ivermectin (an anti-parasite compound used in farm animals); Atenolol (a beta blocker used to treat heart arrhythmias in humans); Ciprofloxacin (an antibiotic) and Fluoxetine (the active ingredient in Prozac).

"The EU is a world leader in developing specific guidelines for risk assessments on pharmaceuticals," says Dr. Metcalfe. "Canada is only beginning to come to grips with this whole issue, so there's a lot we can learn by partnering with the Europeans in this area."

www.cwn-rce.ca