|
|
|
Ppcps in the Environment: Future Research Beginning With the End Always in Mind
 |
|
| Abstract: | Pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) are an extraordinarily diverse group of chemicals used in veterinary medicine, agricultural practice, and human health and cosmetic care. The various sources and origins of PPCPs as pollutants in the environment are depicted in an illustration (available: http://www.gov/nerlesd1/chemistrv/pharma/images/drawing.pdf; note: all the URLs cited in the text are from the web site Daughton/EPA 2003a).PPCPs are ubiquitous pollutants, owing their origins in the environment to their worldwide, universal, frequent, and highly dispersed but cumulative usage by multitudes of individuals (and domestic animals) and from other uses such as pest control(e.g.,see: http://www.epa.gov/nerlesd1/chemistry/phara/images/double-drugs.pdf). Therapeutic drugs in current use comprise over 3,000 distinct bioactive chemical entities formulated (using a wide array of so-called inert "excipients") into tens of thousands of registered end-use products. Personal care products contribute untold numbers of additional ingredients and formulations. Research, which began in earnest in the 1980s and has escalated dramatically in the early 2000s, was largely driven by analytical chemists and tended to focus on establishing the occurrence (and sources) of PPCPs in the environment -primarily in the aquatic domain (as a result of sewage discharge to receiving waters) and much less so in the terrestrial environment (as a result of land application of biosolids; U.S. EP A 2003). Only more recently has emphasis begun to shift to defining fate and transport, to assessing the effectiveness of and means of improving source control ( e.g., sewage treatment), and to pollution prevention. |
|
| Citation: | Daughton, C. G. Ppcps in the Environment: Future Research Beginning With the End Always in Mind.Dr. Klaus Kuemmerer (ed.), Pharmaceuticals in the Environment: Sources, Fate, Effects and Risks, 2nd, Chapter33. Springer Publishers, New York, NY, 33:463-495, (2004). |
|
|
| Contact: |
Chris Siebert - (702) 798-2234 or siebert.christopher@epa.gov
|
|
| Division: |
Environmental Sciences Division |
|
| Branch: |
Environmental Chemistry Branch |
|
| Product Type: |
Book Chaptr |
|
| Published: |
07/27/2004 |
|
|
|
