Studies Find Factories Release Pharmaceuticals

Federal scientists testing for pharmaceuticals in water have been finding significantly more medicine residues in sewage downstream from public treatment facilities that handle waste from drugmakers.

Early results from two pivotal federal studies compare wastewater at treatment plants that handle sewage from drugmakers with those that do not. The studies cover just a small fraction of the 1,886 pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities counted in a 2006 U.S. Census report.

In one study, samples taken at two treatment plants down the sewer line from drugmaking factories contained a range of pharmaceuticals — among them opiates, a barbiturate and a tranquilizer at "much higher detection frequencies and concentrations" than samples taken at other plants, according to preliminary research by the U.S. Geological Survey.

One drug, the muscle relaxant metaxalone, was measured in treated sewage at concentrations hundreds of times higher than the level at which federal regulators can order a review of a drug's environmental impact.

Based on secrecy agreements with the researchers, the treatment plants were not identified.

USGS researcher Herb Buxton, who co-chairs a White House task force on pharmaceuticals in the environment, said it's important that federal scientists test the pharmaceutical industry's claims that their wastewater is not a meaningful source of pharmaceuticals in water.

"It's critical that those types of assumptions are confirmed through real testing," said Buxton.

In another study, Environmental Protection Agency researchers tested sewage at a municipal wastewater treatment plant in Kalamazoo, Mich., that serves a major Pfizer Inc. factory. Bruce Merchant, Kalamazoo's public services director, provided data that showed unusually high concentrations of the antibiotic lincomycin entering the plant, a drug the factory was producing around the time samples were collected.

"There's some product going down the drain," said Merchant.