Prozac Missed By Wastewater Treatment Making Birds Fat

Traces of Prozac that move through the sewage system and elude wastewater treatment processes appear to pose a danger to birds, according to new research.

Quartz summed up the findings: “The Prozac in America’s wastewater is making birds fat.”

Kate Arnold, a fellow at the University of York, spearheaded a recent study investigating “the effects of the commonly prescribed psychiatric pharmaceutical fluoxetine (Prozac), upon wild starlings. In the environment, this antidepressant and its metabolites originate from human waste and are present in surface water at concentrations as high as the µg l-1 level,” The Guardian reported.

The study, published in the journal Philosophical Transactions B, concluded that birds on Prozac behave differently from normal birds. The journal article said:

Here we have demonstrated the potential for an antidepressant to alter behavior and physiology in birds at environmentally relevant concentrations. We suggest that more research is required in both the field and the laboratory to determine the extent to which pharmaceuticals bioaccumulate in prey items, their uptake by wildlife via food and their potential to impact upon fitness-related traits.

Arnold provided input to reporters on her findings, per The Guardian:

The normal way that birds forage during winter is when they’re hungry, they have a big breakfast and then during the day they forage to meet their energetic requirements. Then before bedtime, it has a hearty supper and then it can survive a cold dark winter’s night. And that’s what our control birds did, as we expected. But birds that had been exposed to environmentally-relevant concentrations of fluoxetine, they didn’t do that. They essentially snacked throughout the day and didn’t have a hearty breakfast, so their foraging routine was completely changed.

A major reason this research matters is that the effects of pharmaceuticals in wastewater may not be limited to wildlife.

“This gallimaufry of environmental pharmaceuticals and their active metabolites interact with each other in unknown ways, potentially creating a dangerous brew that is more potent than any individual contaminant due to additive or synergistic interactions. These interactions could lead to powerful or detrimental effects in wildlife -- and indeed, in humans, too,” The Guardian reported.

As Water Online reported last year: "It has long been known that there are trace amounts of PPCPs (pharmaceutical and personal care products) that escape our wastewater treatment plants and end up in waterways, including drinking water sources."

"Though unregulated, PPCPs are on the EPA’s radar via the Third Contaminant Candidate List (CCL3) and the Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule (UCMR) — precursors to possible regulatory action," the report said.

For more news about what might be escaping wastewater treatment, visit Water Online’s Source Water Contamination Solutions Center.