Fish addicted to drugs and birds addicted to Prozac: how the drugs that man downloads devastate entire ecosystems
Caffeine, anxiolytics, antidepressants but also cocaine and methamphetamines: they flow into rivers and change wildlife. The study in the Guardian
ROME – There is the trout high on methamphetamine. The perch that is no longer afraid of predators because it unconsciously takes drugs against depression. But also the female starlings that drink Prozac water in the rivers that become less attractive and the male birds that behave in more aggressively and sing less. In short: man has managed to create drug-addicted animals. This is highlighted by an article published in the journal Nature Sustainability and taken from Guardia< /a>n: Scientists warn that pharmaceutical and illegal drug pollution is now threatening wildlife. Drug exposure is causing significant and unexpected changes in the behavior and anatomy of some animals exposed to discharges in their ecosystems.
The contraceptive pill, for example, has caused sex reversal in some fish populations: male fish have reverted to female organs, leading to a numerical collapse and local extinction events.
“Active pharmaceutical ingredients are found in waterways around the world – says Michael Bertram, professor at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences – including organisms that we could eat. There are a few routes through which these chemicals enter the environment. If drugs released during manufacturing are treated inadequately, this is one way. Another is during use. When a human takes a pill, not all of the drug is broken down in our body and therefore, through our excrement, the effluents are released directly into the environment.”
Drugs such as caffeine, anxiolytics, antidepressants and antipsychotics, but also illegal drugs such as cocaine and methamphetamine, have now invaded ecosystems.
Bertram cites the notable example of diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory drug routinely administered to livestock in South Asia, which caused India’s vulture population to decline by more than 97 percent between 1992 and 2007. Subsequently the country reported an increase in rabies cases caused by dogs feeding on livestock carcasses that were no longer eaten by birds.
But there are also anxious fat fish, after being exposed to low levels of caffeine, or antibiotic pollution that affects microbes.
A recent study that measured 61 different drugs from 104 countries coming from rivers in 1,052 locations found that 43.5% of the sites had traces of at least one drug that were above safe health levels ecological.
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