Alistair Boxall Talks About the Environmental Side Effects of Medication
Emerging Research Front Commentary, October 2010
|
Article: Uptake of veterinary medicines from soils into plants
Authors: Boxall, ABA;Johnson, P;Smith,
EJ;Sinclair, CJ;Stutt, E;Levy, LS |
Alistair Boxall talks with ScienceWatch.com and answers a few questions about this month's Emerging Research Front paper in the field of Agricultural Sciences.
Why do you think your paper is highly
cited?
Over the past 10 years there has been increasing interest over the potential releases of human and veterinary pharmaceuticals into the environment and the implications of these releases in terms of environmental and human health.
This was the first paper to demonstrate the uptake of a range of pharmaceuticals used in veterinary medicine (some are also used as human drugs) from contaminated soils into food items showing that there is the potential for humans to be exposed to pharmaceuticals in the environment via the food chain.
Does it describe a new discovery, methodology, or
synthesis of knowledge?
A few papers had demonstrated uptake of a handful of pharmaceuticals in environmental matrices into plants, but this was the first publication to look at a broad range of compounds. It was also novel in that it attempted to establish the potential level of risk to consumers.
Would you summarize the significance of your paper
in layman's terms?
Figure 1:
The distribution of drugs in the environment. Reproduced
with permission from EMBO reports, Vol 5(12).
View larger image & complete description in tab
below.
Following use, human and veterinary medicines have the potential to be released into the natural environment. Over the past decade pharmaceuticals have been detected in river waters, ground waters, and soils. Questions have therefore been raised of the implications of the presence of pharmaceuticals in the environment to organisms, including humans.
This study shows that some pharmaceuticals can be taken up from soils into food crops and that these substances may be present in our food. The levels in the crops are however likely to be extremely low and are unlikely to pose any threat to human health.
How did you become involved in this research, and
how would you describe the particular challenges, setbacks, and
successes that you've encountered along the way?
In 1999, I was fortunate enough to obtain funding from the European Commission to explore the behavior and effects of veterinary medicines in the environment. My research group was one of the first in the world to start working in this area and over the years we have managed to establish ourselves as one of the leading research groups in the world, looking at the impacts of drugs in the environment.
There are a number of challenges that we have to deal with: levels in the environment are very low, so detecting these compounds is very difficult; the behavior and effects of many of these compounds seems to differ from the "traditional" chemicals that environmental scientists study, so we are having to explore new processes and develop new models for assessing distribution and fate in the environment; humans and organisms will be continuously exposed to drugs in the environment at very low levels, so it is a real challenge to assess the implications of these types of exposure; pharmaceuticals will occur in the environment with other pharmaceuticals and other contaminants so organisms will be exposed to a complex mixture of substances, and we don't yet know how these mixtures interact.
Where do you see your research leading in the
future?
The work on pharmaceuticals is continuing and our main focus now is on uptake into organisms in the environment and transport through the food chain. We are also starting to consider the implications of climate change in terms of the risks of chemicals to the environment.
We are beginning to look at a wider geographical area and are exploring how chemicals (including pharmaceuticals) are used and released in less-developed countries as well as impacts in these areas. With the massive increase in the area of nanotechnology, I expect that we could be working on the environmental fate and effects of nanomedicines in the next few years.
Do you foresee any social or political
implications for your research?
Yes, by demonstrating uptake of pharmaceuticals into food crops, there is the danger that, if the science is not communicated properly, the general public will become overly concerned (we have already seen this happen when people have published work on occurrence of pharmaceuticals in drinking water). It is therefore important that we communicate our findings in a balanced manner.
Much of our work is funded by the UK Government and therefore feeds
directly into policy.
Dr. Alistair Boxall
Reader in Environmental Science
University of York
York, UK
KEYWORDS: pharmaceuticals; veterinary; plant uptake; indirect exposure; soil; environment, SULFONAMIDE ANTIBIOTICS; SULFADIMETHOXINE; RESIDUES; PHARMACEUTICALS; ENVIRONMENT; SORPTION; PHYTOTOXICITY; TRANSPORT; SEDIMENTS; BARLEY.
Figure 1:
Figure 1: Slide showing the distribution of drugs in the environment.
Credit/Permission
EMBO reports 5, 12, 1110–1116 (2004)
doi:10.1038/sj.embor.7400307
"The environmental side effects of medication."
This is freely downloadable.
Reproduced with permission from EMBO reports, Vol 5(12).