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FOCUS AREA 4 BACKGROUND PAPER: AQUATIC ECOTOXICITY ASSESSMENT
Citation:
Hutchinson, T. H. AND G T. Ankley. FOCUS AREA 4 BACKGROUND PAPER: AQUATIC ECOTOXICITY ASSESSMENT. SETAC Pellston Conference: Assessing the impacts of human pharmaceuticals on aquatic ecosystems, Snowbird, UT, June 4-7, 2003.
Description:
In parallel with a growing literature on the presence of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) in effluents and surface waters, recent years have witnessed a steady increase in published studies on the ecotoxicity of APIs to aquatic organisms. Against this background, key issues of concern today are addressed in three key aspects of API ecotoxicology: namely, understanding, measurement, and prediction. This background paper includes information on the understanding of mechanistic ecotoxicology approaches to aquatic ecotoxicity measurements and finally the use of different kinds to ecotoxicology data to support the prediction of potential long-term effects on population of aquatic organisms. Illustrative examples are given using a variety of APIs and other organic substances. As background, the organizers of the Workshop originally proposed that the following questions be addressed: 1) what are the strengths and weaknesses of current procedures, test species, biomarkers, etc?; 2) are there other procedures, test species, etc. that are worth considering?; 3) are there surrogate toxicity tests available that can accurately provide toxicity information?; 4) are there situations when traditional acute:chronic assessment factors may not be useful?; 5) what is the role of field versus laboratory assessments?; and 6) what are the important issues and open questions with regard to the potential occurrence of environmental antibiotic resistance? Due to practical constraints it is anticipated that topic 6 on antibiotic resistance cannot be thoroughly addressed during the June 2003 workshop and hence it is not included in this background paper.