Aricans are prescribed millions of doses of prescription drugs every year. Livestock are given millions more. But after the pill has been swallowed or the injection taken, the active components of the drugs do not become inert or completely absorbed by the body.
Adding to the problem are prescription drugs that aren't used, then are flushed down the toilet or deposited in landfills -- ultimately ending up in the environment.
This so-called "pharmaceutical pollution" could have major implications on wildlife, agriculture and humans -- yet is only beginning to be studied.
Just one problem stemming from pharmaceutical pollution is antibiotic-resistant bacteria. When drugs are excreted in waste, the compounds linger in the environment. In the case of livestock waste, the antibiotic-laced manure is spread directly onto farm crops as fertilizer. From there it may run off into nearby streams.
The result is that bacteria is able to mutate into strains that are resistant to the widely spread antibiotics, paving the way for infections that cannot be easily cured.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 2 million people in hospitals get infections each year, which cause 90,000 deaths. Of these, more than 70 percent of the bacteria that causes these infections are resistant to at least one common antibiotic that is typically used to treat them.
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