Fish on Prozac? How depressing!

[Emillereid]

Our pharmaceutical drugs are turning up in the environment and in animals. What will the consequences be?


By Kathy A. Svitil


December 27, 2003 | Environment


Over the past few years, ecologists surveying the waters around waste treatment plants have found contraceptives, synthetic musks, ibuprofen, and other compounds flushed off or out of our bodies and into the environment via municipal effluent. A recent study in Tromsø, in northern Norway, for example, found extremely elevated levels of caffeine in the seawater of the Tromsø Sound. Now the compounds are turning up in animals as well—with unknown consequences.

 

Environmental toxicologist Bryan Brooks and his colleagues collected bluegill, channel catfish, and black crappie from Pecan Creek, a stream in the Dallas suburb of Denton, Texas, that is prime dumping ground for effluent from the city’s waste treatment plant. The researchers took brain, liver, and muscle samples from the fish and tested them for fluoxetine, the active ingredient in the antidepressant Prozac. Fluoxetine and norfluoxetine, the metabolized form of the drug, were found in every tissue sample and in high enough concentrations, Brooks says, to warrant studies of their possible physiological effects......
http://www.discover.com/web-exclusives/fish-on-prozac1127/


We humans certainly are a force to be reckoned with --

 

[Faygo Kid]

1. Look at the bright side - the fish aren't depressed any more

A little hyper from the caffeine, perhaps. Seriously, Rachel Carson was right, more than 40 years ago, and yet we still debate it.

[maha]

2. Suspicious

There are people who don't approve of the serotonin inhibitors and other anti-depressant drugs for "moral" reasons, and they come up with all kinds of "studies" to show that the drugs are either harmful or not effective.

Those of us who are depressives have a different opinion.

There are worse things to be found in water than Prozac.

[Karenina]

3. Maha, this is less about a specfic substance

if one takes a long view, and more about how the life we depend on for human sustenance is negatively affected by our complete disregard. The alarm about antibiotics in meat have been sounding for DECADES. At this point it will probably take a major, highly communicable, resistant infection to wake folks up to the OBVIOUS. I completely agree with you, Prozac is WAY DOWN on the list of water polluters. Maybe a little more attention to the gas additive MTBE would be in order... :shrug:

[maha]

4. I understand, but

"if one takes a long view, and more about how the life we depend on for human sustenance is negatively affected by our complete disregard."

You picked a bad example. Prozac is one of the more innocuous drugs that find their way into the environment. Find an example that is actually harmful.

[SanchoPanza]

5. Not quite...

I fall under both categories, both morally opposed (for myself) and scientifically opposed, I assume the term would be, for the simple reason that there are very few studies that have been done on the long-term effects of SSRIs on human neurological function. And the ones that are just now coming out on the long term effects of SSRIs on developing brains, i.e. children, are quite alarming. European studies have shown an increase in suicide risk among teens and younger children who take SSRIs for depression, and when I first became aware of the possible links between SSRIs and other anti-depressants and otherwise inexplicable youth violence I became extremely concerned.

For those of you who don't know, many of the recent schools shootings involved the perpetrator being on prescription anti-sepressants, including SSRIs like Prozac and Zoloft. Luvox, Lithium, and I believe larger doses of Ritalin have also been connected to such incidents.

But with regard to the adult population suffering from a seratonin imbalance, such medications are very effective. I have several friends and family members who suffered through depression and those that were prescribed SSRIs speak very highly of them. My concern, however, is the rather close relationship that has developed between makers of SSRIs/anti-depressants and the FDA, which approved the use of many of these drugs in the treatment of depression in minors without solid long-term study.

And yes, there are worse things in water than SSRIs. Deadly chemicals, pesticides, mercury, etc. The point is nothing remotely or potentially dangerous should be allowed in the public water supply or bodies of water that are used recreationally.

[amazona]

6. not much worse for a lot of people

Prozac has serious side effects for some people. A friend gained 100 pounds on Prozac, was incapable of ejaculation, and became delusional. He suffers from bipolar disease and it was probably malpractice that he was ever given Prozac in the first place -- this doctor is now out of business -- but when I look at the epidemic of overweight people in America, especially people who don't eat so much, then I have to wonder. We all have to drink water. Even people with bipolar disorder. Even people who suffer biochemical and sexual dysfunction as a result of Prozac.


I understand the FDA is now advising that SSRIs not be given to people under age 18 because of the risk of suicidal and violent ideation. (One of the Columbine kids was on Effexor.) It is unrealistic to expect people to go their first 18 years of life without drinking water.

This is scary and not just for the fish.