August 08, 2004

Prozac Nation

Posted by Chris

It seems that Prozac is being prescribed so widely in the UK that there’s a buildup in our drinking water:

Traces of the antidepressant Prozac can be found in the nation’s drinking water, it has been revealed.

An Environment Agency report suggests so many people are taking the drug nowadays it is building up in rivers and groundwater.

See also The Observer.

Posted on August 8, 2004 09:58 AM UTC
Comments

Yeah, well, the doctors seem to be handing it out like sweeties. A couple of years ago, a friend had a period of stress - college work, family stuff, getting on top of her a bit. She went along to the doctor for some advice, and the first thing they suggested was Prozac. She was shocked.

Posted by Sharon · August 8, 2004 10:50 AM

As always with chemistry, you have to ask —- “what does this prove”?
Frequently all it proves is that

(a) molecules are really really tiny, and there are an awful lot of them in even a single piece of matter humans can see and

(b) analytical chemistry can detect astonishingly small numbers of molecules and

© molecules soluble in water quickly disperse out all over the water.

We’ve seen this sort of blindness to chemistry basics before in the US Delaney clause (the one that says that food additives that have the slightest chance whatsoever of causing cancer, even if that means absolutely ridiculous doses, can’t be used, even if, all things considered, such additives would be a better public health policy choice than not using them).

Let’s limit the hysteria this time round till we have real numbers that give some context.

Posted by Maynard Handley · August 8, 2004 12:09 PM

It sounds like something from a JG Ballard novel to me. It’s a metaphorical minefield at any rate, delightfully pregnant with symbolic possibilities.

Posted by DC · August 8, 2004 01:04 PM

Look on the bright side. Those poor transgendered fish we hear so much about might get a bit of action now.

Posted by entangledbank · August 8, 2004 06:17 PM

my brother went to the doctor to get an ADD diagnosis for his college and mentioned that he was making a lot of mistakes the first day on a construction job, the first time he’s ever done construction, so he left unannounced the first day, feeling anxious. The dude gives him a six month supply of SSRI’s

If only I knew I had an anxiety disorder that time I quit piano class when I felt anxious about facing the teacher because I didn’t practice…

Posted by anon · August 8, 2004 06:39 PM

In some places (areas in Norway and Texas, I know) the antidepressants — meaning usually Prozac — have saturated the water so much that it’s detectable in the local fish.

Posted by Mac Thomason · August 9, 2004 01:42 AM

I don’t understand. How does the Prozac get from the pill bottle to the water supply?

Posted by Tom T. · August 9, 2004 01:45 AM

Via pee?

Posted by V. · August 9, 2004 04:14 AM

“In some places (areas in Norway and Texas, I know) the antidepressants — meaning usually Prozac — have saturated the water so much that it’s detectable in the local fish.”

That’s potentially misleading. Many chemicals tend to accumulate in fish’s bodies as they feed and respirate, so that the concentration in the fish can grow orders of magnitude greater than the concentration in a surrounding area. If Prozac is a bioaccumulative substance, then it may be highly concentrated in fish but still undetectable in the surrounding water.

Posted by Matt Brubeck · August 9, 2004 06:01 AM

Tom T’s question isn’t silly. (This is the best reference for Prozac’s mechanism I’ve found so far.) As I understand it, in order to work, the Fluoxetine moleule has to bind to receptors in the pre synaptic cell, which makes it into a different (ie non-Prozac) molecule.

The only way Prozac would get into sewage is if patients were flushing their pills down the toilet, en masse. I think, anyway.

It’s just a silly season scare story.

Posted by Backword Dave · August 9, 2004 12:06 PM

Dave, I’m not sure what the technical term for it is, but different substances have different rates of uptake into the body and the excess is usually excreted in the urine. Most any drug one takes orally, I think, has a significant portion that is unused and excreted in urine. This is why, for example, the bizarro health fad of drinking one’s own urine can be dangerous—stuff can reach toxic levels easily.

Posted by Keith M Ellis · August 9, 2004 12:35 PM

Good thing, I reckon. Might cheer up all those miserable sods you meet on the Tube. Rather more important is the discovery that hormone ingestion from agricultural chemicals in the water have caused fhe average size of the European male penis to, er, shrink over the past fifty years.

Posted by Dave F · August 9, 2004 12:38 PM

Damn! and I thought it was just my imagination.

Posted by Another Damned Medievalist · August 9, 2004 05:05 PM

Keith, good point. I was thinking about the drugs in sport thing, where testers (so I believe) look for the metabolites of illegal substances, rather than the drugs themselves.

Posted by Backword Dave · August 10, 2004 11:56 AM

Everybody seems to have fallen for this one. It was a “study”—assertion—by a non-scientist that was picked up and repeated until it acquired the patina of truth.

Oops, it turns out a Liberal Democrat MP announced it was so, the Scotsman fell in line, and then it zoomed round the (credulous) internet. I wonder how many will recant of their own volition.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/thisweek/story/0,12977,1280806,00.html

Media reports this week claimed that the Environment Agency had found significant levels of the antidepressant Prozac in drinking water, amounting to what some referred to as “mass medication”. But the Environment Agency says it has never looked at Prozac. Instead, it attributes the work to Norman Baker, a Liberal Democrat MP with a long-standing interest in the issue.

“There is no research that shows Prozac is in water. There’s no analytical data at all,” says Tony Lloyd, who runs the water research programme at the Drinking Water Inspectorate. The drug’s chances of remaining intact through someone’s body, the sewers and then the water treatment system, which is designed to break down persistent pesticides, are negligible, he says. “Prozac is a biodegradable molecule, and while you would expect people to be excreting it and you’d expect it to be in the sewers, you wouldn’t expect it to get through sewage treatment.”

The Drinking Water Inspectorate doesn’t test water for all drugs, but it has looked at whether steroids used in contraceptive pills - considered among the most resilient of drugs - survive the water treatment process. Their equipment, which can detect one nanogramme of drug in a litre, found no traces in drinking water.

——————
http://www.dwi.gov.uk/pressrel/2004/pr0304.shtm
OBSERVER CLAIM THAT THERE ARE TRACES OF PROZAC IN DRINKING WATER IS INCORRECT

Prozac has never been found in our drinking water.

The story comes from a review by the Environment Agency of human pharmaceuticals in the environment. The review did not include drinking water.
• The Environment Agency has researched drug residues in sewage effluent and the impact on the receiving river waters. The Agency has reviewed the 500 pharmaceuticals most commonly used in England and Wales and prioritised 12 for monitoring, including one anti-depressant. Traces of 10 pharmaceuticals were found in sewage effluent and 8 in the rivers receiving these effluents. In all cases the concentrations found had no environmental impact. Prozac was not one of the pharmaceuticals found.

• River water can be used as a source of drinking water. However such waters receive advanced treatment, which was installed to remove traces of pesticides. Such treatment is equally effective at removing any drug residues that might be present in the raw water, including Prozac.

• The Environment Agency’s report and our assessment of the structure of Prozac (Fluoxetine) show it to be biodegradable, and it will therefore be broken down by the sewage treatment process and in watercourses.

• When all factors were considered, including biodegradation and dilution, the report predicted that concentrations in the environment were less than the predicted no-effect concentration.

Notes for editors

The Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI) was established in 1989 to regulate public water supplies in England and Wales. DWI is responsible for assessing the quality of drinking water in England and Wales, taking enforcement action if standards are not being met, and appropriate action when water is unfit for human consumption.
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3310754

——————-

The original story:

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3310754


Anti-Depressant ‘Found in Drinking Water’

By Jennifer Sym, PA News


Britons could unwittingly be swallowing traces of anti-depressant Prozac and other drugs in drinking water, according to a report released today.

Environmentalists have labelled the situation “hidden mass medication of the unsuspecting public” after the study states pharmaceutical residues can travel through the sewage system and end up in the “aquatic environment”.

The levels of any such residue is unknown, and the Environment Agency has called on the drugs industry to prove its products are unlikely to cause significant harm to the environment.

According to the study by Norman Baker MP, Liberal Democrat shadow environment secretary, Prozac has been found by the EA to be “both toxic and persistent” and “a substance that could be of potential concern”.

There has been a 166% increase in prescriptions for anti-depressants in England since 1991 – up to 24 million a year.

Mr Baker said: “This looks like a case of hidden mass medication of the unsuspecting public and is potentially a very worrying health issue.

“The Government is quite simply not taking its responsibility to public health seriously.

http://my.webmd.com/content/article/92/101794.htm
WebMD fell for it, evidently not bothering to dig for the source (a fake study).

Posted by Liz · August 13, 2004 05:56 AM

Everybody seems to have fallen for this one. It was a “study”—assertion—by a non-scientist that was picked up and repeated until it acquired the patina of truth.

Oops, it turns out a Liberal Democrat MP announced it was so, the Scotsman fell in line, and then it zoomed round the (credulous) internet. I wonder how many will recant of their own volition.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/thisweek/story/0,12977,1280806,00.html

Media reports this week claimed that the Environment Agency had found significant levels of the antidepressant Prozac in drinking water, amounting to what some referred to as “mass medication”. But the Environment Agency says it has never looked at Prozac. Instead, it attributes the work to Norman Baker, a Liberal Democrat MP with a long-standing interest in the issue.

“There is no research that shows Prozac is in water. There’s no analytical data at all,” says Tony Lloyd, who runs the water research programme at the Drinking Water Inspectorate. The drug’s chances of remaining intact through someone’s body, the sewers and then the water treatment system, which is designed to break down persistent pesticides, are negligible, he says. “Prozac is a biodegradable molecule, and while you would expect people to be excreting it and you’d expect it to be in the sewers, you wouldn’t expect it to get through sewage treatment.”

The Drinking Water Inspectorate doesn’t test water for all drugs, but it has looked at whether steroids used in contraceptive pills - considered among the most resilient of drugs - survive the water treatment process. Their equipment, which can detect one nanogramme of drug in a litre, found no traces in drinking water.

——————
http://www.dwi.gov.uk/pressrel/2004/pr0304.shtm
OBSERVER CLAIM THAT THERE ARE TRACES OF PROZAC IN DRINKING WATER IS INCORRECT

Prozac has never been found in our drinking water.

The story comes from a review by the Environment Agency of human pharmaceuticals in the environment. The review did not include drinking water.
• The Environment Agency has researched drug residues in sewage effluent and the impact on the receiving river waters. The Agency has reviewed the 500 pharmaceuticals most commonly used in England and Wales and prioritised 12 for monitoring, including one anti-depressant. Traces of 10 pharmaceuticals were found in sewage effluent and 8 in the rivers receiving these effluents. In all cases the concentrations found had no environmental impact. Prozac was not one of the pharmaceuticals found.

• River water can be used as a source of drinking water. However such waters receive advanced treatment, which was installed to remove traces of pesticides. Such treatment is equally effective at removing any drug residues that might be present in the raw water, including Prozac.

• The Environment Agency’s report and our assessment of the structure of Prozac (Fluoxetine) show it to be biodegradable, and it will therefore be broken down by the sewage treatment process and in watercourses.

• When all factors were considered, including biodegradation and dilution, the report predicted that concentrations in the environment were less than the predicted no-effect concentration.

Notes for editors

The Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI) was established in 1989 to regulate public water supplies in England and Wales. DWI is responsible for assessing the quality of drinking water in England and Wales, taking enforcement action if standards are not being met, and appropriate action when water is unfit for human consumption.
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3310754

——————-

The original story:

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3310754


Anti-Depressant ‘Found in Drinking Water’

By Jennifer Sym, PA News


Britons could unwittingly be swallowing traces of anti-depressant Prozac and other drugs in drinking water, according to a report released today.

Environmentalists have labelled the situation “hidden mass medication of the unsuspecting public” after the study states pharmaceutical residues can travel through the sewage system and end up in the “aquatic environment”.

The levels of any such residue is unknown, and the Environment Agency has called on the drugs industry to prove its products are unlikely to cause significant harm to the environment.

According to the study by Norman Baker MP, Liberal Democrat shadow environment secretary, Prozac has been found by the EA to be “both toxic and persistent” and “a substance that could be of potential concern”.

There has been a 166% increase in prescriptions for anti-depressants in England since 1991 – up to 24 million a year.

Mr Baker said: “This looks like a case of hidden mass medication of the unsuspecting public and is potentially a very worrying health issue.

“The Government is quite simply not taking its responsibility to public health seriously.

http://my.webmd.com/content/article/92/101794.htm
WebMD fell for it, evidently not bothering to dig for the source (a fake study).

Posted by Liz · August 13, 2004 06:02 AM
Followups

This discussion has been closed. Thanks to everyone who contributed.