{"id":6618,"date":"2019-11-18T09:16:34","date_gmt":"2019-11-18T06:16:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=6618"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:30:41","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:30:41","slug":"medicines-pose-global-environmental-risk-experts-warn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2019\/11\/18\/medicines-pose-global-environmental-risk-experts-warn\/","title":{"rendered":"Medicines Pose Global Environmental Risk, Experts Warn"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>By AFP&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Residues from\nbillions of doses of antibiotics, painkillers and antidepressants pose a\nsignificant risk to freshwater ecosystems and the global food chain, a new\nanalysis said last week Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There are growing\nfears that the unchecked use of antibiotics in both medicine and agriculture\nwill have adverse effects on the environment and on human health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When animals and\nhumans ingest medicines, up to 90 percent of active ingredients are excreted\nback into the environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Many medicines are simply discarded &#8212; in the United States alone an estimated one-third of the four billion drugs prescribed each year ends up as waste.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Organisation for\nEconomic Co-operation and Development (OECD) compared data on concentrations of\npharmaceutical residue in water samples worldwide as well as prescribing trends\nand water purification regulations in various countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One study cited in\nits report estimates that 10 percent of all pharmaceuticals are potentially\nharmful to the environment &#8212; including hormones, painkillers and\nantidepressants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The OECD said that\nantibiotic use for livestock is predicted to rocket by more than two thirds in\nthe next decade, stoking concerns over antibiotic resistance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.standardmedia.co.ke\/health\/article\/2001349523\/medicines-pose-global-environmental-risk-experts-warn\">Read\nmore\u2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By AFP&nbsp; Residues from billions of doses of antibiotics, painkillers and antidepressants pose a significant risk to freshwater ecosystems and the global food chain, a new analysis said last week&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6619,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}