The Afterlife of Drugs and the Role of PharmEcovigilance:

The prescribing and usage of medications (for both humans and domestic animals) have ramifications extending far beyond the traditional objectives of conventional medical care. The healthcare industry has an environmental footprint that includes the active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) from medications, residues of which can establish themselves as environmental pollutants. This occurs by a variety of routes, but primarily from excretion, bathing, and disposal. Many parallels exist between healthcare and the protection and remediation of the environment, spanning the stages from symptomology and diagnosis to treatment. The critical role played by pharmacovigilance in healthcare has a counterpart with the ecological environment. The term ecopharmacovigilance has been used with respect to the unforeseen consequences APIs can have once they enter the environment. We propose that conventional pharmacovigilance could be expanded to encompass environmental concerns - a concept we term pharmEcovigilance - as a way to unify the parallel but interconnected needs for protecting both human and ecological health. To convey the scope of a pharmEcovigilance program, we provide an overview of the occurrence of APIs as environmental pollutants, their ramifications for human health and the environment, and some of the ways in which their impact could be reduced or minimized. The major areas discussed include: (i) the routes by which APIs become contaminants in the environment, (ii) the hazards of leftover drugs as a result of stockpiling and from disposal to sewerage, which can also eventually contribute to the contamination of drinking water, (iii) why drugs accumulate unused, and (iv) the benefits for humans and the environment that could accrue from reducing the accumulation of leftover drugs and the subsequent introduction of APIs to the environment.