Traces of the anti-depressant, fluoxetine – often better known by its commercial name, Prozac – have been detected by an Australian-Italian joint study of lakes and rivers, and may be affecting freshwater fish.
A five-year study by scientists from Monash University’s School of Biological Sciences and the University of Tuscia’s Department of Ecological and Biological Sciences examined the effect of pharmaceutical residues on fish in freshwater in Australia.
Fluoxetine, the third-most popular anti-depressant pharmaceutical and which was the first commercially successful selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI – a form of antidepressant) is one of the main drugs to have been found.
When patients take any type of prescription medicine, their bodies do not absorb all of the medication. The residue is excreted in urine or faeces, which is then flushed through toilets and passes into waterways and waste treatment centres.
The residue remains in the water and aquatic life in our waterways can absorb these left-over pollutants.
According to some estimates, the “bioavailability” of fluoxetine is roughly 70 percent to 72 percent. Bioavailability is the portion of a drug or other substance that enters the bloodstream. The remaining 28 percent to 30 percent is excreted as waste.
Even at waste treatment centres, where wastewater is treated to remove contaminants, many of our modern-day water treatment plants were not designed to filter out chemicals related to pharmaceuticals.
Once the treated water is pushed back into waterways, the pharmaceutical-tainted water can still be absorbed by fish.
Furthermore, unused or expired medication is frequently – and improperly – disposed of through toilets, adding to the problem.
In 2016, researchers took 3,600 male guppies (Poecilia reticulata) from Alligator Creek in North Queensland to study whether any fish had been contaminated with fluoxetine. They found no contamination.
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