Enlarge image
Drug residues pollute water bodies
Photo: Yulia Reznikov / Getty Images
Drugs are an indispensable tool for many people - such chemicals soothe and heal.
However, depending on the preparation, up to 90 percent of the active ingredients are excreted again and get into the waste water via the toilet.
However, German sewage treatment plants usually cannot fish the substances out of the water, which is why they get into lakes and rivers and accumulate in the environment.
The consequences of the chemicals there have not yet been clarified.
Manufacturers must conduct studies on environmental behavior and toxicity.
But the results of these studies mostly remain under lock and key, experts now complain.
"Environmental authorities and the public often cannot access the data," explains the lawyer and environmental scientist Kim Teppe from the Federal Environment Agency (Uba).
As a result, effective water protection is made considerably more difficult.
For other substances such as industrial chemicals, biocides and pesticides, the results of ecotoxicological studies are publicly available.
In the case of medicinal products, on the other hand, manufacturers have so far only had to submit data to the approval authorities and can also refer to extensive exceptions, so that in practice often no data is submitted at all, as Teppe explains.
In addition, the data may not be passed on to environmental authorities or the specialist public by the approval authorities.
Even with a specific request from a water monitoring authority, manufacturers could classify parts or even the entire environmental dossier as requiring confidentiality with reference to business and trade secrets, says Teppe.
Complaint has already been filed
After all, a new regulation is being considered across Europe.
A first draft for a new human medicines law is to be presented at the end of March.
"Hopefully, environmental concerns such as closing data gaps and data transparency will then be addressed, at least to some extent," hopes Teppe.
The lawyer, who was awarded the Körber Foundation's German Study Prize for her work, has submitted proposals to the EU Commission herself.
Previously, she had sued the administrative court in Cologne for access to the environmental data.
Since then, the procedure that could lead to a decision by the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) has been ongoing.
In Germany, thousands of tons of biologically active substances from human and veterinary medicine are currently released into the environment via waste water, sewage sludge and liquid manure.
More than 2000 different substances are on the market.
According to Uba, painkillers, antibiotics, hormones, beta-blockers, contrast media and antidepressants are frequently found in water.
But on the list of so-called priority substances within the meaning of the EU Water Framework Directive, not a single active pharmaceutical ingredient has appeared so far, says Gerd Maack from the specialist group for the environmental assessment of pharmaceuticals at Uba.
Substances with a particularly high environmental risk and a wide distribution in water are listed there.
According to EU decisions, hormonally active substances or the painkiller diclofenac could soon be on the list.
According to Uba, the suggested limit for diclofenac is 0.04 micrograms per liter.
In fact, Europe's waters are measured on average 0.4 micrograms per liter, i.e. ten times the value.
The active ingredient, of which around 80 tons are used in Germany every year, is an example of how medicinal substances can have surprising and terrible consequences for nature and the environment.
In India in the 1990s, vultures died en masse from kidney failure after the birds ate beef carcasses.
The ruminants had previously been treated with the drug by farmers.
Controversy over a new level of purification
Diclofenac is only partially filtered out in German sewage treatment plants.
So far, the sewage treatment technology has not been designed for this.
A debate has therefore been raging for years about the establishment of a further, 4th cleaning stage.
It keeps such so-called trace substances back, at least in part, through activated carbon filtration or the use of ozone.
So far, however, the construction of the 4th cleaning stage has not been mandatory for the operators of sewage treatment plants.
However, more and more municipalities are testing or planning such systems - especially if they discharge the wastewater into sensitive bodies of water.
In addition to the manufacturers, consumers are also responsible for this issue.
In general, they should question how necessary the use of funds is.
In addition, leftovers should not be disposed of in the sink or toilet.
The substances inevitably end up in drinking water and mineral water when water is withdrawn from bodies of water and groundwater.
"It's not necessarily less polluted than water from the tap," says Maack.
The concentrations are usually far away from the therapeutically effective ones.
However, the possible long-term consequences for humans and potential interactions are completely unclear, Maack points out.
dpa/joe