Pharma-Ecology, 2nd Edition

8Ecotoxicity of Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1. Understand the relationship between ecological levels (i.e. individual, population, community, and ecosystem) and ecotoxicity.
2. Make specific comparisons about efficacy of competing PPCPs versus environmental impact (especially for the most persistent compounds).
3. Examine various qualitative and quantitative techniques to assess risk of PPCPs in the environment.
4. Relate mode of action (MOA) of pharmaceutical and personal care products to ecological endpoints.

Today, we are faced with an ever‐increasing assault on the environment by PPCPs together with a variety of other pollutants, which emerged with the rapid advances in technology and medicinal chemistry (manipulation of chemicals for medicinal purposes). Advances in sample extraction and analytical instrumentation described in Chapter 6, as well as increased surveillance, have improved the detection of PPCPs in the environment. These improvements have to be accompanied by understanding the fate and transport of PPCPs, as well as their ecological effects. Such scrutiny involves assessing PPCP toxicity in the environment (i.e. ecotoxicity). Currently, there are no government‐imposed standards anywhere in the world regarding acceptable levels of PPCPs in potable water or in effluents released into surface water. Of most importance is toxicity in aquatic environments as almost half of the world population lives within 60 km (37 miles) of coastal ...