Some Scientists Fed Prozac To a Bird To See What Would Happen

Wastewater treatment plants aren’t called “wastewater cleaning plants” for a reason: they don’t clean, they treat. The EPA maintains a specific list of all the chemicals that must be processed out of wastewater before it can be unleashed into estuaries or oceans or wherever else.

That list tends to be limited to super-dangerous stuff like pesticides, solvents, solid human waste, polychlorinated biphenyls, and the like. Common pharmaceuticals don’t usually make the list, but new research from the University of York suggests that maybe they should.

There have been a few studies in recent years looking into what exactly is in the effluent released from wastewater treatment plants. One study in Puget Sound found that young chinook salmon tested positive for everything from Advil to cocaine to Lipitor.

But while it’s starting to be understood that animals can absorb these chemicals we allow to flow into their environment, how those chemicals affect them is still not very well understood. After all, why would an anti-depressant like Prozac have any particular effect on, say, a European starling?

So the University of York, basically, fed Prozac to a bird. And the findings indicate that we should be taking a closer look at this process:

The researchers found that the drug behaved similarly in both the bird and human systems. Such results are invaluable in understanding how to use data detailing the effects of pharmaceuticals in humans, applying this across to wildlife species.

Eliminating these drugs from wastewater treatment is possible, probably; we just haven’t required that it be done. But certainly these studies suggest that our pharmaceutical habits don’t stay only with us.