Featured Story

Drugs in Our Water

EU teams up with CWN researchers to study the risks

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.

By Debbie Lawes

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 Ont.

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.

Metcalfe says 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."

ERAPharm's coordinator in Florsheim Germany, Dr. Thomas Knacker, says having a national Centre of Excellence "ensues 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 been studying pharmaceuticals in water much longer than Canada

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

Assessing the risk

The ERAPharm study 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 well where the federal government is considering approaches to regulate and assess pharmaceutical compounds. Provincial agencies would also 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. To what degree, however, does long-term exposure to these drugs differ from drinking separate doses of each one? The concerns will likely increase as medicinal use reaches new heights with an aging babyboom generation.

From Apenolol to Fluoxetine

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 UK 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. One of his Ph.D. students is currently in Ontario working on the sludge project. There are about 10 students from Canada contributing to the research.

"By pooling resources and expertise we are able to deliver a lot more than if we both did things separately," says Dr. Boxall. "I personally find the Canadian guys really good to work with and 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 European Union are world leaders 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."

Members of the ERAPharm consortium will be meeting October 2006 in Canada to share information and disseminate preliminary findings to those in government.

For more information on the ERAPharm project, visit: www.erapharm.org.