Science Inventory

PHARMACEUTICALS AND PERSONAL CARE PRODUCTS IN THE ENVIRONMENT: AN OVERVIEW - POLLUTION FROM PERSONAL ACTIONS, ACTIVITIES, AND BEHAVIORS

Citation:

Daughton, C G. PHARMACEUTICALS AND PERSONAL CARE PRODUCTS IN THE ENVIRONMENT: AN OVERVIEW - POLLUTION FROM PERSONAL ACTIONS, ACTIVITIES, AND BEHAVIORS. Presented at Environmental Toxicology Graduate Program, Riverside, CA, April 25, 2001.

Impact/Purpose:

The research focused on in the subtasks is the development and application of state-of the-art technologies to meet the needs of the public, Office of Water, and ORD in the area of Water Quality. Located In the subtasks are the various research projects being performed in support of this Task and more in-depth coverage of each project. Briefly, each project's objective is stated below.

Subtask 1: To integrate state-of-the-art technologies (polar organic chemical integrative samplers, advanced solid-phase extraction methodologies with liquid chromatography/electrospray/mass spectrometry) and apply them to studying the sources and fate of a select list of PPCPs. Application and improvement of analytical methodologies that can detect non-volatile, polar, water-soluble pharmaceuticals in source waters at levels that could be environmentally significant (at concentrations less than parts per billion, ppb). IAG with USGS ends in FY05. APM 20 due in FY05.

Subtask 2: Coordination of interagency research and public outreach activities for PPCPs. Participate on NSTC Health and Environment subcommittee working group on PPCPs. Web site maintenance and expansion, invited technical presentations, invited articles for peer-reviewed journals, interviews for media, responding to public inquiries.

Subtask 3: To apply state-of-the-art environmental forensic techniques to the recognition and characterization of emerging pollutants in the aquatic environment. There is a need for high sensitivity and for a powerful method of structural characterization, advanced mass spectrometric and chromatographic techniques to be employed to meet the challenge of emerging pollutants, including pharmaceuticals and personal care products, agents of sabotage, and explosives. Ongoing efforts continue to identify previously unrecognized pollutants from a range of problematic samples having importance to regional and state contacts.

Subtask 4: To provide the Agency with a set of practical analytical methods for the selective and sensitive determination of selenium species (organic, inorganic, volatile and non volatile forms) in multiple media to accurately assess and if necessary control the risk of selenium exposure to organisms. This includes development of optimal extraction, digestion, separation and detection approaches.

Subtask 5: To develop and apply an analytical method that can extract and detect synthetic musks. The extent of exposure may be determined by measuring levels of synthetic musks from their potential source (communal sewage effluent). This subtask ends in FY05 with the deliverable of APM 21. Future applications to biosolids will be covered in subtask 6.

Subtask 6: Application, and improvement, of previously in-house developed sensitive, robust, and green, methodologies regarding the use of urobilin and sterols as a possible markers of sewage contamination.

Subtask 7: Adaptation and improvement of previously developed in-house methods, for PPCPs (e.g., antibiotics and musks) to solid materials (e.g. biosolids, sediments).

Subtask 8: Study of the presence of personal care products, incombustible organic compounds from the direct-piping of small engines exhaust in Lake Tahoe, and lake deposition of airborne pollutants from industrial activity

Description:



Perhaps more so than with any other class of pollutants, the occurrence of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPS) in the environment highlights the immediate, intimate, and inseparable connection between the personal activities of individual citizens and their environment. PPCPS, in contrast to other types of pollutants, owe their origins in the environment directly to their worldwide, universal, frequent, highly dispersed, and individually small but cumulative usage by multitudes of individuals - as opposed to the larger, highly delineated, and more controllable industrial manufacturing/usage of most high- volume synthetic chemicals.

Many PPCPs (as well as their metabolites and transformation products) can enter the environment following ingestion or application by the user or administration to domestic animals. Disposal of unused/expired PPCPs in landfills and in domestic sewage is another route to the environment. The aquatic environment serves as the major, ultimate receptacle for these chemicals, for which little is known with respect to actual or potential adverse effects. Domestic sewage treatment plants are not specifically engineered to remove PPCPS, and the efficiencies with which they are removed vary from nearly complete to ineffective. While PPCPs in the environment (or domestic drinking water) are not regulated, and even though their concentrations are extremely low (ng/L-ug/L), the consequences of exposure over multiple generations to multiple compounds having different as well as similar modes of action prompts a plethora of questions. While the environmental issues involved with antibiotics and sex steroids are the most widely recognized, numerous other therapeutic and consumer-use classes of PPCPs pose additional environmental concerns.

While the occurrence of PPCPs in the environment is not new (undoubtedly having taken place ever since any given PPCP has enjoyed commercial use), the continual advancement in the capabilities of analytical chemistry to identify and quantify ever-lower concentrations (and increasing polarities) of pollutants has elucidated the issue only over the last decade or so. The U.S. EPA and other U.S. federal and state agencies are just beginning to consider the many scientific issues involved with this multifaceted environmental concern. One of the most frequent questions is "So What? With therapeutic drugs, exposures of aquatic organisms are at levels far below therapeutic dosages for humans - and exposures for humans via drinking water are lower yet. So why should we be concerned even if PPCPs prove to be ubiquitous pollutants?" This question will be examined from a number of perspectives, and suggestions will be offered with respect to actions regarding future direction for research and pollution prevention. As analytical chemistry continues to progress, ultimately yielding the routine capability of detection limits that approach yocto molar levels and the routine ability to perform non-target analyses, society will be challenged with numerous questions regarding the significance of the occurrence of most commercial chemicals in increasing numbers of environmental samples.

Record Details:

Record Type:DOCUMENT( PRESENTATION/ ABSTRACT)
Product Published Date:04/25/2001
Record Last Revised:06/06/2005
Record ID: 82459