Abstract

Contaminants of emerging concern (CECs), such as pharmaceuticals, personal care products, flame retardants, and plasticizers have been found in waterways around the globe. They have been detected in small streams and even now in the Great Lakes¹ even though it was previously thought that many of these compounds were used in small quantities and would not be measureable. Comparatively little information is known about the impacts of these chemicals, particularly at the small concentrations at which they are found. However, pharmaceuticals in particular are of great concern as they are designed to have specific physiological impacts. Our own research has shown that compounds, such as diabetes medications and psychopharmaceuticals, may have an impact on fish in particular at the concentrations at which they are found in the environment, even though these are well below human therapeutic levels of these compounds.^2,3 Of particular interest are their impacts on behavior and reproduction which may have significant population-level impacts. These compounds are not found singly and, therefore, the impacts of mixtures are also of great concern as there may be synergistic impacts of chemicals, especially those that have similar mechanisms of action. In fact, when we investigated a plasticizer and herbicide that were implicated as potential endocrine disruptors, exposure to a mixture of these two compounds had more than an additive endocrine-disrupting impact on male fish.⁴ One of the major issues is the lack of an organized national agenda to determine the impacts of these chemicals. The larger environmental community has called for more support and identified specific areas that need to be better researched to inform the evaluation of these compounds.⁵ This presentation will highlight the data available and the policy issues raised by this area of research.

Literature Cited

1.  Blair BD, Crago JP, Hedman CJ, Klaper R. Pharmaceuticals and personal care products found in the Great Lakes above concentrations of environmental concern. Chemosphere. 2013;93(9):2116–2123.

2.  Niemuth NJ, Jordan R, Crago J, Blanksma C, Johnson R, Klaper RD. Metformin exposure at environmentally relevant concentrations causes potential endocrine disruption in adult male fish. Environ Toxicol Chem. 2015;34:291–296.

3.  Weinberger J 2nd, Klaper R. Environmental concentrations of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor fluoxetine impact specific behaviors involved in reproduction, feeding and predator avoidance in the fish Pimephales promelas (fathead minnow). Aquat Toxicol. 2014;151:77–83.

4.  Crago J, Klaper R. A mixture of an environmentally realistic concentration of a phthalate and herbicide reduces testosterone in male fathead minnow (Pimephales promelas) through a novel mechanism of action. Aquat Toxicol. 2012;110–111:74–83.

5.  Novak P, Arnold WA, Blazer VS, Halden RU, Klaper RD, Kolpin DW, Kriebel D, Love NG, Martinović-Weigelt D, Patisaul HB, Snyder SA, Vom Saal FS, Weisbrod AV, Swackhamer DL. On the need for a National (U.S.) research program to elucidate the potential risks to human health and the environment posed by contaminants of emerging concern. Environ Sci Technol. 2011;45:3829–3830.