{"id":2362,"date":"2002-09-15T18:12:56","date_gmt":"2002-09-15T22:12:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/?p=2362"},"modified":"2014-12-15T18:13:30","modified_gmt":"2014-12-15T23:13:30","slug":"studying-prescription-drug-pollution-nations-waterways","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/2002\/09\/studying-prescription-drug-pollution-nations-waterways\/","title":{"rendered":"Studying Prescription Drug Pollution in the Nation\u2019s Waterways"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_2363\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"width: 267px\"><a href=\"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/20_23002.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2363\" src=\"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/20_23002.jpg\" alt=\"DoGEE Professor A. Lynn Roberts (right) and chemistry major Michael Blumenfeld \u201902 use a gas chromatograph\/mass spectrometer to measure extremely small amounts of pharmaceuticals in water samples.\" width=\"257\" height=\"145\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><strong>DoGEE Professor A. Lynn Roberts (right) and chemistry major Michael Blumenfeld \u201902 use a gas chromatograph\/mass spectrometer to measure extremely small amounts of pharmaceuticals in water samples.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cOver the past few years, scientists in Europe have found pharmaceuticals in natural waterways, sewage treatment effluents, and even in drinking water,\u201d says A. Lynn Roberts, associate professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering (DoGEE). \u201cYet until very recently this issue has been largely overlooked in the United States,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n<p>Roberts is leading a team of environmental engineers who are studying the effects of prescription drug pollution nationwide on human and aquatic life. Funded by a three-year Environmental Protection Agency grant for $525,000, they are analyzing human pharmaceuticals and antiseptics in drinking water, sewage treatment plants and coastal waters.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There are many ways in which human pharmaceuticals in the environment could produce undesirable effects on aquatic organisms or even humans,&#8221; Roberts points out. The research involves assessing which human pharmaceuticals in current use are likely to pose a risk to the environment, developing methods for their analysis at trace levels, and testing to determine how effectively pharmaceuticals are being removed during the treatment of drinking water. The team is conducting tests to see how well pharmaceuticals are being removed at sewage treatment plants in Massachusetts and Maryland. They will also collect water samples in the upper Chesapeake Bay to check for the presence and concentration of drugs and antiseptics. And they will try to determine how efficiently nature\u2019s self-cleansing processes eliminate these man-made pollutants.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe millions of doses of prescription drugs that Americans swallow annually to combat cancer, pain, depression, and other ailments do not disappear harmlessly into patients\u2019 digestive systems,\u201d she says, \u201cbut instead make their way back into the environment, where they may contaminate drinking water and pose a threat to aquatic wildlife.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>For more information, visit www.jhu.edu\/~dogee<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cOver the past few years, scientists in Europe have found pharmaceuticals in natural waterways, sewage treatment effluents, and even in drinking water,\u201d says A. Lynn Roberts, associate professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering (DoGEE). \u201cYet until very recently this issue has been largely overlooked in the United States,\u201d she adds. Roberts is&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2363,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-back-on-campus","issue-fall-2002"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Studying Prescription Drug Pollution in the Nation\u2019s Waterways - JHU Engineering Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/2002\/09\/studying-prescription-drug-pollution-nations-waterways\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Studying Prescription Drug Pollution in the Nation\u2019s Waterways - JHU Engineering Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cOver the past few years, scientists in Europe have found pharmaceuticals in natural waterways, sewage treatment effluents, and even in drinking water,\u201d says A. 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