PHARMACEUTICAL POLLUTION: A SHORT COMMUNICATION

Do we ever wonder what happens to the medicines that we take for headaches, ulcers, infections, depressions, and epilepsy? Does the body use all of the medicine that we take and, if not, where does the unused portion of the medicine go? Well, the portion used by the body is metabolized to something else. Both unused medicines and their metabolites are excreted to eventually appear together in our water systems. The unused (surplus or expired) medicines that we dump also appear in our ecosystem. The water thus becomes a medi-soup. Would we want to drink water that contains all these medications together?