Abbey Strauss, M.D.

In 2007, the NY Times ran an excellent piece on this issue. This is a hard problem to measure but it makes sense that the dangers here are just waking up. The term ‘emerging contaminants’ has been born. This article is a good review, and forces us to give serious consideration to the study and proper assessment of the  real degree of danger. The common sense part of thinking says there must be a down-side to these uncontrolled disposal practices. We cannot afford to repeat the situation of  how long it took for the community to believe, for example, that higher carbon dioxide and freon levels really do harm the environment.  Though we are over taxing nature’s ability to handle CO2, it remains a natural substance, and left alone, nature can work with it if we limit the work-load.  But most medications are not known to nature, and so nature doesn’t know how to metabolize and render them inactive.  What will be the real effect of daily disposals of medications into our ecosystem? The concern that other people may use a thrown-away medication is too limited a view. We have to think of all living things down stream from the disposal.

The NY Department Of Environmental Conservation posted some key information and many good links as well.