Washington mussels test positive for drug residues

Mussels in Puget Sound, Washington, U.S.A., recently tested positive for residues of prescription opioids and other drugs.

The testing, conducted by Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist Jennifer Lanksbury and other researchers, also found that the mussels tested positive for four kinds of synthetic surfactants found in detergents and cleaning products, seven kinds of antibiotics, five types of antidepressants, more than one antidiabetic drug and one chemotherapy agent, CNN reported.

Lanksbury said she is concerned about the presence of surfactants, which are "known to have estrogenic effect on organisms, so they affect the hormone system of some animals in an estrogenic way, such as feminizing male fish and making female fish reproductive before they're ready," CNN reported.

However, the doses of oxycodone found in the tested mussels are 100 to 500 times lower than an adult therapeutic dose, according to Lanksbury. 

"So you would have to eat 150 pounds of mussels from these contaminated areas to even get a small dose. But just the fact that it's present tells us it is getting into our waters, at least in urban areas,” she said.

Lanksbury said she surmises that the residues of prescription opioids and other drugs are likely coming from wastewater treatment plants. 

"They receive the water that comes from our toilets and our houses and our hospitals, and so these drugs, we're taking them, and then we're excreting them in our urine, so it gets to the wastewater treatment plant in that way," Lanksbury said. "Some people, unfortunately, flush their drugs down the toilet, and that's a huge source of these pharmaceuticals.”

To test the water for contaminants, Lanksbury and her team put clean mussels in antipredator cages. The cages were staked to the inner tidal area of Puget Sound at low tide, and the scientists collected them after several months.

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