India - Antibiotic Content Of One Day's Wastewater Enough To Treat 90,000 - Highest Levels Ever Seen

[hatrack]

PATANCHERU, India – When researchers analyzed vials of treated wastewater taken from a plant where about 90 Indian drug factories dump their residues, they were shocked. Enough of a single, powerful antibiotic was being spewed into one stream each day to treat every person in a city of 90,000.

And it wasn't just ciprofloxacin being detected. The supposedly cleaned water was a floating medicine cabinet — a soup of 21 different active pharmaceutical ingredients, used in generics for treatment of hypertension, heart disease, chronic liver ailments, depression, gonorrhea, ulcers and other ailments. Half of the drugs measured at the highest levels of pharmaceuticals ever detected in the environment, researchers say. Those Indian factories produce drugs for much of the world, including many Americans. The result: Some of India's poor are unwittingly consuming an array of chemicals that may be harmful, and could lead to the proliferation of drug-resistant bacteria.

"If you take a bath there, then you have all the antibiotics you need for treatment," said chemist Klaus Kuemmerer at the University of Freiburg Medical Center in Germany, an expert on drug resistance in the environment who did not participate in the research. "If you just swallow a few gasps of water, you're treated for everything. The question is for how long?"

Last year, The Associated Press reported that trace concentrations of pharmaceuticals had been found in drinking water provided to at least 46 million Americans. But the wastewater downstream from the Indian plants contained 150 times the highest levels detected in the U.S. At first, Joakim Larsson, an environmental scientist at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, questioned whether 100 pounds a day of ciprofloxacin could really be running into the stream. The researcher was so baffled by the unprecedented results he sent the samples to a second lab for independent analysis.

EDIT

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090125/ap_on_re_as/pharmawater_india_3

[phantom power]

1. Bet that's breeding some awesome antibiotic resistant bacteria.

:banghead:

[tom_paine]

5. Hey! It's called "helping evolution along", you lib'rul moonbat!

:sarcasm:

I mean, seriously, we're just sort of trying to...you know...help, like. And no one appreciates our sacrifice and effort.

:rofl:

[Sanity Claws]

2. India allows antibiotics to be dispensed w/o a prescription

I thought that was dangerous because antibiotics can have adverse effects, including liver damage. This article highlights another problem with it: indiscriminate use shows up in wastewater.

[phantom power]

3. It probably also means...

that they're being used in insufficient dosages, or insufficient courses. Thus breeding even more super bugs.
Yikes.

[tabatha]

4. They should spend money on making sure

everyone's immune systems are strong enough to avoid getting sick - and stop looking to bottles of medicine for every small ailment. In a few years, probably these antibiotics will be useless as the bugs they are meant to stop evolve.

[Nihil]

6. Woohoo! Tourist opportunity!

It sounds just like Lourdes ...

> "If you take a bath there, then you have all the antibiotics you need for
> treatment, ... If you just swallow a few gasps of water, you're treated for
> everything.

It's a *MIRACLE* ah tell you!

:evilgrin:

[populistdriven]

7. this area has been highly contaminated for more than 10 years - link

http://www.springerlink.com/content/h63v724554237521/

[rucky]

8. Not exactly Universal Healthcare, but...

instead of clinics, maybe we can make a Big Pharma bath-house where we can have separate pools for different types of ailments:

Ulcer Pond. the Prozac Pool, etc