Klaus Kummerer – Pharmaceuticals in the Environment (third edition)

Автор: Klaus Kummerer
Название книги: Pharmaceuticals in the Environment (third edition)
Формат: PDF
Жанр: Медицина
Страницы: 531
Качество: Изначально компьютерное, E-book

Following the success of the first edition, this pioneering study of pharmaceuticals in the environment has been updated and greatly extended. It includes the status of research on pharmaceuticals in soil, with attention to terrestrial and aquatic environments as well as new substance categories such as tetracylines and chinolones and the latest results concerning contamination of the environment and risk reduction.

Pharmaceuticals in the environment are still a “hot bed” of interest. Since the publication
of the first edition in 2001 and the second edition in 2004 the focus of research
has changed again. In the meantime, we have learned quite a lot about the fate, effects,
and risks associated with the presence of pharmaceuticals in the aquatic and terrestrial
environment. Anyway, there is still an increasing need for knowledge of pharmaceuticals
in the environment.
The input and fate of parent compounds and the relative importance of different sources
including compounds that up to now have only been scarcely investigated are still of interest.
However, metabolites of human and animal metabolism are coming into focus. The same holds
for products of transformation of parent compounds and metabolites in the environment, such
as dead-end transformation products of biodegradation, oxidation or photolysis.
As it has been extensively demonstrated that the active compounds are present in the
environment some of the interest in this field of research has moved from analysis of
the compounds, which is still undertaken to effect studies to more extensive fate studies
in the lab and in field trials. It has been found that environmental concentrations
can cause effects in wildlife if proper tools are applied for effect assessment. The question
of mixture toxicity has gained more and more attention. It has been learned that
classical tests may underestimate effects and risks. The significance of antibiotic resistance
in the environment is still not clear.
The long-awaited guideline for environmental risk assessment for human pharmaceuticals
in the European Union has been in force since December 2006. Accordingly,
more work has been done in the field of risk assessment and risk management. For
compounds already on the market that constitute by far the biggest share this guideline
is only applicable in case of the need for a renewal of the license. As for risk management
strategies to eliminate pharmaceuticals from waste water or from the effluent
of sewage treatment plants have been proposed and investigated. A tremendous amount
of literature can now be found describing technical management measures such as
oxidative or photolytic effluent treatment, filtering techniques, and application of charcoal.
It has been learned however, that each of these approaches has its specific shortcomings.
Therefore, additional approaches such as including people handling and using
the compounds, and focussing on the properties of the compounds (“green pharmacy”)
have come into focus.
Accordingly, the 3rd edition has been largely changed again in comparison with the
previous ones to address these new issues and the new lines of discussions and new
findings. As in the previous editions, it gives an overview of the present state of knowledge
presenting typical results and lines of discussion. Like the previous editions, this
one doesn’t claim to give a complete overview including the fully detailed body of knowledge
of pharmaceuticals in the environment. Rather, it addresses important and typical
topics. In contrast, it highlights the most important questions and issues related to
the presence of pharmaceuticals in the environment. It also provides many new findings
that raise new questions and confirm earlier results.
This edition contains four major parts. In the first part, specifics of pharmaceuticals
that distinguish them from “classical” micro-pollutants are addressed. In the second part,
new findings on sources, occurrence and fate of pharmaceuticals in the environment are
presented. In the third part, an overview of the current state of knowledge of effects of
pharmaceuticals in in aquatic and terrestrial environmental is given. New, promising approaches
to the study of the effects of pharmaceuticals in the environment are described.
The fourth part addresses risk assessment issues starting with the EU guideline and practical
experiences of its application. Shortcomings of the EU guidelines are discussed in
several contributions. A brief description of the state of regulation of chemicals in Japan
is also included. The final part is dedicated to risk management. As advanced STP effluent
treatment as a management approach has already been addressed in the second edition
and no generally new findings have been published since this time, only little space has
been devoted to it. Instead mainly non technical approaches are presented here that are
also of importance and are often overseen.
Accordingly, most of the contributions have replaced the ones of the second edition.
They are addressing these new foci of research. The remaining ones have been updated.
As a result, the 3rd edition is not only a revised and updated one but an additional new
volume in a “series” of pharmaceuticals in the environment. The 1st and 2nd edition
are still valuable sources of information and should be used together with this 3rd edition.
Research needs are addressed within each chapter. Therefore, a separate chapter
on research needs was omitted in this edition.
Again the edition of the book would have not been possible without the support of
my co-workers in the research group of the Applied Environmental Research Section at
the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at the Medical Center at Freiburg
University. Special thanks to Radka Alexy, Petra Heiberger and Andreas Längin for their
support of my daily routine, which gave me the necessary time to edit a book in such a
dynamic field. Numerous discussions with colleagues, with contributors to the book and
other people have been stimulating. Thank you to all those people who created the opportunity
for discussion, the exchange of ideas and the sharing of results on the role of
pharmaceuticals in the environment. This, as well as the encouraging comments and overwhelmingly
positive feedback received for the second edition from many experts in the
field encouraged the publisher and myself to publish a third edition. Thank you to Christian
Witschel and his team from Springer Verlag Heidelberg who strongly supported
the idea and helped to make the third edition possible. Thank you also to all the authors
who gave up their precious time to contribute to this book.
A big thank you again to my wife Isolde, and my children Sarah and Yannik, with
whom I was able to spend precious family time and without whose patience and encouragement
neither this nor the preceding editions of the book would ever have been
completed.
Klaus Kümmerer