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Antidepressant ingredient detected in Texas lake water
DALLAS, Oct. 23 — What could be more peaceful, more restful or more relaxing than dropping a line into a quiet Texas lake and trying to hook a fish that is on Prozac? According to a study by a Baylor University toxicologist, fluoxetine — the active ingredient in the antidepressant Prozac — is making its way to a lake in the Dallas area and into the tissue of the freshwtr blue gill fih.
BRYAN BROOKS, an assistant professor of environmental studies at Baylor said the fluoxetine most likely made its way through a waste water treatment plant and into a river that feeds into Lake Lewisville, northwest of Dallas.
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While he has been asked several times about whether fish on Prozac find pleasure in floating aimlessly and no pain when hooked by a fisherman, Brooks said the most important part of his findings are that some pharmaceuticals can make their way through water treatment plants and back into waterways.
Brooks said the fluoxetine, and a metabolized compound similar to it, most likely made their way into the water systems from the urine of users or through people flushing Prozac down the toilet. The waste water facility was not equipped to remove the compounds, which then made their way into the blue gills, and perhaps other aquatic life....
This is bad folks. It tells us lots of folks are depressed in America. THis is only the most recent report of pharmaceutical metabolites polluting the waterways and posing an extreme danger to other life forms that share our planet. Metabolites of birth control pills and hormone replacement therapy are particularly disruptive of other species. We human chimps sure are a force to be reckoned with -- nature tends not to like life forms that get this uppity.
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