October 03, 2023
Published in the Mongabay-India, an article highlights the impact of pharmaceutical pollution on the health and well-being of humans and animals and how it is driving the emergence of antimicrobial resistance.
Chemical compounds from antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals enter the environment through three primary ways—wastewater discharged from manufacturing facilities, human and animal excreta and farming practices, and improper disposal of unused or expired medicines by consumers.
OHT’s Dr. Ramanan Laxminarayan comments, “Many pharmaceutical companies that manufacture antibiotics don’t treat the effluent which means that the effluent coming out from the industrial plant contains antibiotics. These antibiotics then make their way into natural water bodies…and when they are in these lakes and ponds, they are killing off sensitive bacteria, and they are allowing only resistant bacteria to survive, which then means that we are creating antibiotic resistance in natural reservoirs. So, clearly this is not a sustainable practice because the manufacture of antibiotics is itself contributing to the destruction of the curing ability of antibiotics.”
Read the article here.
