Anti-depressants reduce feeding in starlings, contraceptive drugs slash fish population and male fish have been seen to be feminised thanks to oestrogen contamination…

Taking drugs mindlessly could have serious repercussions. First comes the well-documented adverse drug reactions (ADRs) that have been shown to be one of the leading causes of death in the West where they do routine audits. ADRs also produce wide spread morbidity, which needs to be treated as inpatients. It is estimated that 6.5% of hospital admissions in the National Health Service (NHS) in a small country like the UK is due to ADR.  ADR costs the NHS £2 billion a year!

Compass, an audit body, estimates that "now is the time for a debate about costs and policies about which drugs the healthcare service can afford, as people are paying infinitely higher prices. Drug bill to the NHS now stands at £11 billion - for increasingly marginal rewards and higher risk from adverse drug reactions." But who cares? The profits from the top four pharmaceutical companies on the Fortune 500 are humungous.

What is now being increasingly discussed is how chemical drugs inflict dangerous long term environmental damages too. Vultures in India were virtually wiped out by the anti-inflammatory drugs given to cattle on whose carcasses they feed.

Synthetic oestrogens used in birth control pills almost killed the whole lot of fathead minnows in lakes in Ontario resulting in serious environmental ecosystem. A new research just published in the Royal Society Journal says a dangerous story. Potent pharmaceuticals in human and animal sewage could be the unknown cause of global wildlife crisis. Worldwide use of drugs, which are active even in very small amounts could have hitherto unknown consequences on the environment.

There are very few studies on the effect of drugs on wildlife. A new study shows that an anti-depressant reduces feeding in starlings and that a contraceptive drug slashes fish populations in lakes.

Kathryn Arnold, at the University of York, who edited a special issue of the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B says that “given the many benefits of pharmaceuticals, there is a need for science to deliver better estimates of the environmental risks they pose. Given that populations of many species living in human-altered landscapes are declining for reasons that cannot be fully explained, we believe that it is time to explore emerging challenges, such as pharmaceutical pollution.”

 
Research published in September revealed half of the planet’s wild animals had been wiped out in the last 40 years. In freshwater habitats, where drug residues are most commonly found, the research found 75% of fish and amphibians had been lost. Male fish have been seen to be feminised thanks to oestrogen contamination of waters. Inter-sex frogs have recently been spotted in lakes contaminated by waste water. All in all, the drug menace on the environment seems to be threatening to explode as the next major environmental danger.

(Professor Dr BM Hegde, a Padma Bhushan awardee in 2010, is an MD, PhD, FRCP (London, Edinburgh, Glasgow & Dublin), FACC and FAMS. He is also Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the Science of Healing Outcomes, chairman of the State Health Society's Expert Committee, Govt of Bihar, Patna. He is former Vice Chancellor of Manipal University at Mangalore and former professor for Cardiology of the Middlesex Hospital Medical School, University of London.)