Prescription drug use is on the rise in the United States.
Because of this, you might be surprised to learn what’s in your
local river or drinking water, says a University of Georgia
scientist.

A new study has started at the UGA College of Agricultural and
Environmental Sciences to find out just how much of a certain
type of drug is in Georgia’s waterways, said Marsha Black, a CAES
environmental health scientist.

Popular Drugs

Along with former CAES scientist Kevin Armbrust, Black will look
for five popular antidepressants known collectively as Selective
Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors. You may know them as Prozac,
Luvox, Paxil, Celexa or Zoloft.

SRRIs have been available only for the past few years. They’re
effective in treating a number of conditions, such as depression,
bulimia, obsessive compulsive disorder and premenstrual
syndrome.

The Environmental Protection Agency has become very interested in
these drugs, she said. SRRIs share a lot in common with chemicals
like pesticides that are known to be present in and toxic to the
environment.

If you use a sensitive enough instrument and look in the right
direction, she said, you can find these chemicals.

“Evidence from Europe says it’s getting in the drinking water,”
Black said. “Europe is light years ahead of us (on this
research).”

Environment? How?

How do the drugs get into the environment?

“They’e excreted by the people taking them therapeutically,” she
said.

The drug goes in human waste through the sewerage system to
wastewater treatment plants. Then the treated water is discharged
into the environment.

Sometimes the drug passes through the body in its original form
or in some broken-down form.

Sometimes, when an organism metabolizes a drug, a glucose
molecule may get attached. With the attached glucose, the drug
can pass through the system quicker. When it gets into the
environment, the glucose molecule can be lost. That leaves the
original drug loose in the environment.

But little is known about how these drugs affect the environment
in the United States. Black hopes to change that.

Much like the way pesticides and other chemicals are tested,
she’ll put these drugs through a battery of environmental tests
in the lab.

Black will work with a Georgia city’s wastewater treatment
facility. She’ll test water samples before and after the
wastewater treatment to find out if and how much of the drugs are
present. Then she’ll compare that to the amount of SRRI drugs
used in that area.

Cause for Concern

The study may show that these drugs degrade quickly in the
environment and should be of no concern. Or it may prove that
there is a public safety issue here that needs to be addressed,
she said.

Her research has already shown Prozac to be deadly in the
parts-per-billion range to water fleas, a small microcrustacean
widely used to study water quality. This is reason for concern,
she said.

The study will be conducted over the next three years with a
$500,000 EPA grant.