Pharmaceutical products (PPs) in the environment represent an increasing concern for environmental scientists as well as regulatory institutions. Some PPs and their residues (including metabolites) are not removed during conventional biological treatment, enter the water supply via wastewater-treatment plants (WWTPs) and can also reach drinking waters. Much has been published concerning the occurrence, fate and behaviour of PPs, but risk assessment for the environment and for human health still remains weakly investigated.
According to the international literature, it appears that most of the up to now investigated pharmaceuticals do not pose an acute threat to the environment, but that a small number do, and that none appear likely to pose a significant threat to human health (via environmental exposure). These conclusions are supported by a recent and detailed human health risk assessment. However, this apparent certainty that there is no human health risk posed by the presence of human pharmaceuticals in the environment is not supported by deeper thinking. For example, the apparently reassuring risk assessments studies are based on potential risks to healthy adults: the more sensitive and hence vulnerable foetus, children, the elderly and the infirm were not considered. The real situation is that, currently, there are many more uncertainties than certainties, which leaves scientists, the public and the press still unconvinced that drinking water containing a tiny quantity of a pharmaceutical is completely harmless.
Consequently, in spite of the uncertainties in the real risk for animal and human populations, numerous initiatives have been launched to decrease the presence of PPs in the environment. They include actions at the industrial (green pharmacy), medical (sustainable prescription, healthcare establishments control, …), patient (prescription, awareness, ….) or environmental (effluent treatment, …) sphere as well as in the regulation.
This symposium proposes to present some of these initiatives, mixing both scientific and psychosocial studies.