- Allison Walter
- Eugene, OR
- United States
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What is more important: Our drugs or our ecosystems?
Originally created to support human health and treat illnesses, pharmaceuticals are being scrutinized as a new class of water pollutants with potentially devastating effects on our ecosystems. Drugs including antibiotics, anti-depressants, birth control pills, and painkillers have been detected in our water sources. The remains of these drugs enter water systems through industrial waste, medical facilities, household toilets, and other methods of disposal. They then pass through sewage treatment facilities and into groundwater, irrigation systems, and waterways from lakes to oceans.
Numerous studies suggest that pharmaceutical wastes pose a significant environmental threat. For example, commonly used anti-depressants and birth control pills are being blamed for reducing fish sperm levels in lakes. Many aquatic and terrestrial organisms rely on fish for their own food and survival; therefore these drugs can be detrimental to biological diversity. Scientists are concerned that traces of pharmaceuticals in our water sources can be linked to abnormalities ranging from frog mutations, inter-sex fish, to an increase in cancer and behavior changes in aquatic organisms.
With the rise of global drug consumption, how much responsibility do the pharmaceutical companies have to protect the environment? How much responsibility do we have as individuals to stop taking these drugs if they cause harmful effects on the environment? Do the benefits we gain from drugs outweigh the long-term and irreversible impact they may have on our ecosystems?
Caitlin Luview
For example, if the people working in the pharmaceutical companies operated from attitudes of care and concern for all of humanity and our world, rather than from selfish monetary profit motives that exploit others and our environment, the global impact of the products they make would have been considered and implemented in sustainable ways, from cradle to cradle (C2C).
As consumers of these products, we would be educated to know what to do with them. Not only how to take them as necessary for health reasons, but also how to recycle the packaging, what to do with expired products, and so on, C2C.
What humanity really needs now is not more bandaid discussions on symptoms that have arisen, but rather, we all need to come together around the round table of our world, like members of one united, global human family, and make new environments, communities, and business processes that operate from the best benefical good of every single person on this planet, none excluded.
Implementing educational environments in every aspect of society and media that supports these attitudes of compassion, care, and altruism, is key to us all uniting to come back into balance with nature's laws of harmony on all levels. These are certainly exciting times, as humanity is shifting to a new evolutionary level!
Part 2 of 2
E Pines
However, a caring world would not only have made safe decomposition and processing an equal priority without outfox-the-fox enough government scrutiny, but would concern itself with environmental impacts that might have played a role beyond natural genetics in the development of such mental and phyical diseases.
The key is mutual care, responsibility, and guarantee. If we inculcate that through education and social pressure, the rest would likely follow.
Caitlin Luview
Hello all. I hope I am not too late with this comment. I appreciate that Allison has concern for the interconnections between things, and it is this kind of thinking and seeing, this conscious way of being in consideration of others and our world in all that we do, that really is the solution to the question that has been posed here.
We all now live together in an integral globalized world. All levels of society--whether in politic, economics, healthcare, ecology, etc.--exist today on a day to day basis in ways of interconnection and interdependence. Yet, how many of us truly understand this global, interconnected reality we are all living in together, and how many of us live our lives accordingly? It is this understanding of our integrality that humanity--as a species on this planet that is a part of nature and not above nature and its laws--needs to come to, in order for attitudes and behaviors to flip and turn toward resolution, which is basically from our selfish egoism to compassion and care for each other and our world. Through globalization, nature itself has conspired to cause humanity to shift from being concerned with "me, me, me," to reaching outside of ourselves and caring instead for our global "we."
If you'll consider this for a moment: I don't think the question you are really asking at its core, is about drugs or ecosystems at all. These are merely surface symptoms that have arisen in our world from a deeper root cause.
Everything that occurs, everything that we see outside of ourselves, is a projected reflection of our social relationships with one another. The health or lack in these social relationships is the root cause for every thing and every issue.
Part 1 of 2
Theresa Berkovich
Allison Walter
Logan Hein
I think one of the trickier items in that grey area of "improves life but not strictly necessary" area is birth control. Aside from increasing life quality, it does wonders to reduce population growth, and in my opinion overpopulation is just as dangerous to the environment as pollution. Honestly I think in that case the benefits outweigh the cost, even though strictly speaking everyone could live without birth control. It wouldn't even be necessary if people only had sex when they wanted to have kids, but isn't even close to being feasible for several reasons.
Wayland Tan
This should mean though that pharmaceutical companies should start R&D for more environmentally safer drugs, as well as perhaps finding more effective ways to dispose of trace chemicals that do environmental harm. Or, if they are unable/unwilling to do so, perhaps they could set up/fund a group that _would_ be willing/able to.
Admittedly, this may end up being harder than I make it sounds; the most important thing perhaps is to gather more information, do more research, and make people more aware.
Allison Walter
Morgan Grove
Allison Walter
Beatrix Bacher
It seems like the biggest issue is the unknown effects of many drugs on the environment, so the first order of business should be to investigate the effects of certain medications on the environment. While it may not be feasible to test every single drug on the market, drugs often fall into categories based on similar molecular structure so studying key structures would be a good starting point and then further testing can be undertaken if deemed necessary.
This is what should ideally happen, but testing is expensive and time consuming so companies are not going to want to participate and will lobby heavily to oppose any legislation on the matter. Therefore, a more realistic solution would be to spread information about drug affects on the environment and make people aware of the situation. I don't think that many think about medical impacts on the environment but more importantly, many see human health as a non-negotiable issue. When someone is sick or dying the expectation is that they will be treated and the environmental impacts of this action are not debated. Just as it is hard to put a price on environmental preservation it is hard to place a number value on human health, so balancing the two is difficult. While I want to protect and preserve the environment, I also want access to modern medicine.
Brooke Bilyeu
Georgia Kurtz
Tina Zhu
Casey Gibbons
Allison Walter
peter lindsay 30+
Eric Parsons
Mat Lisin
The class consensus was that there needs to be a shift in American lifestyle. Americans consume drugs incredibly rapidly, and for any little issue. The pharmaceutical companies foster this lifestyle, because it makes them money. We as Americans need to make an effort to reduce our unnecessary drug intake. This lifestyle shift, combined with a few specific treatment plans for the really problematic compounds like those that mimic estrogen, will need to be enough.
peter lindsay 30+
Christopher Tam
Enrico Petrucco 20+
Some might think the following goes too far, but I ask you to consider it in a rational sense of being mindful and as an attempt to reason one potential solution:
Maybe there could be an easier method of waste handling in order to divert excreted and disposed drugs from entering the ecosystem? If one drives a car (grandfather clause excluded) without a catalytic converter in the USA then one can receive a $10,000 fine (or more?) since the exhaust fumes are found to be highly disruptive to general health. Why not impose such a rigorous consideration on improper disposal of drugs in residential waste, including septic disposal?
Obviously, first we would need a method to isolate drugs from improper disposal routes.
Could a system be established to supply people with an agent for reacting/degrading residual drugs in excretions at source - before dilution (it would certainly help people realise the truth about ingesting 'active' chemicals and force a minimal level of responsibility in a culture being excessively medicated)?
The proposal is that each drug supplied to people should come with a degrading agent (if necessary) which would allow pharmaceutical companies (and consumers) to think responsibly about the drug life cycle.
We can no longer afford to live in a throw-away culture, it is too irresponsible.
Helen Rappe
Lisa Murphy
Allison Walter
tejas kulkarni
Kirsten Gotting
Bernd Schröder
This line of reasoning is not optimally rational. It uses the social concept of reciprocity and applies it to the environment, a non-personal non-intentional system. The real question should be, "How much more can the environment give us iff we protect it, and at what ethical and economic cost is this protection feasible?"
Enrico Petrucco 20+
There is rarely an 'economic cost' worth considering when ethics are involved, though in this instance one might find that the 'economic cost' is potentially quite high if we do not solve the topic in question.
That which is optimally rational and that which is optimally ethical are only potentially in sync if we take rationality to a grand open level without assumption. There are some people who believe that other forms of life should be taken within moral consideration. May be some people believe plants are not worthy of moral consideration, may be some think that of other animals, and even some think that of certain other humans.
If one tries to draw moral lines on purely logical scenarios then the result will almost certainly leave out important virtues. So an equally relevant question to follow yours is:
How can one not 'protect' the envionment, especially considering the moral (and other) cost of not doing so?
Bernd Schröder
irrationality is not conducive to ethical behavior. It doesn't matter what ethical values you have, as long as they are consistent and really your values, you are always better off being rational than irrational in implementing your ethics.
I do take other forms of life into moral consideration, both domesticated animals and wild animals - which suffer greatly in nature. If you will, take a look at my comment three comments below. My objection to Kirsten Gotting was aimed at the personification of the environment as if it were a person to which we owe reciprocity. This is an understandable emotional stance for a social primate, which we all are, but it is a category error and as humans, we have the cognitive privilege of detecting such errors and correcting our conclusions accordingly. Nature is not our Mother, it does not keep tabs on what it has provided us, and it does not have interests and emotions. This should not be confused with wild animals living in it, which do have interests and emotions, but which also suffer greatly in their natural state and never consented to their existence in that state - it is up to humans to decide whether we want to alleviate their suffering, and how.
Your final question neither contradicts mine nor is it independent from mine - it is implicit in mine. If (and only if) not protecting the environment has economic and moral costs, as your question implies, then it logically follows that its protection has an ethical and economic net benefit for our values, the consideration which was precisely expressed in my original question responding to Kirsten Gotting.
Kirsten Gotting
The original question posed by Allison asked how much responsibility individuals and pharmaceutical companies have to the environment, due to the evidence presented about how drugs can harm the environment, and how much the benefits of drug use outweigh environmental destruction. The question, "How much more can the environment give us iff we protect it, and at what ethical and economic cost is this protection feasible?" does not take into account the amount of services that have already been withdrawn from the environment, and how the resultant waste and pollution from this withdrawal currently damages ecosystems. There needs to be more caution when allowing the exposure of any kind of drug to the environment as the affect of the drug on an entire ecosystem is generally unknown.
Enrico Petrucco 20+
Actual ethical values DO matter as well as being self-consistent, any justification otherwise implies potential to rationalise many highly unfavourable moral positions.
Your question inferred a point of view that is opposed to the point of view my question inferred, that was the reason for re-arguing your question. Neither are necessarily relevant questions unless one seeks to imbalance nature (inferred by your question) or to rebalance it (inferred by my question).
Your previous comments seem to yield a utilitarian perspective (also noted from your link). Utilitarianism is an incomplete view according to Sandel's online course:
http://www.ted.com/speakers/michael_sandel.html
http://www.justiceharvard.org/2011/08/cccb-bioethics-testing-utilitarianism-video/
I do not find the conclusions in your link perfectly rational, nor do I find your conclusive crucial questions appropriate as they are merely human centric - which is an imbalanced view of nature. Throughout history humans have slowly come to realise that we are not actually the centre of the universe...
Bernd Schröder
Kirsten writes that my utilitarian question does not take into account the amount of services that have already been withdrawn from the environment, and how the resultant waste and pollution from this withdrawal currently damages ecosystems.
The first part is correct - it does not take into account the amount of good that we have already utilized from the environment. For instance, Kirsten mentioned salicylic acid. We already have this knowledge now and can use it perpetually. Of course, nature may have more similar knowledge in store for us and if so, we should seek it. But there may be diminishing returns to that project. The second consideration, how much waste and pollution damages ecosystems is relevant to the future of human civilization to the degree to which human civilization depends on these ecosystems.
To me, life in the wild does not have intrinsic value, neither does biodiversity. It has aesthetic value and the animals in the wild have lives that contain some happiness and joy. However, they also contain an extraordinary amount of suffering, and it is vital to understand that these animals never consented to be part of those systems - they ended up there as a function of blind evolution and they lack the cognitive capacities to understand the causes of their predicament, let alone alleviate it. No one wants to be eaten alive by predators, or from the inside out by parasites, or starve to death, or suffer from noxious cold.
To me, this factor has to be considered when reasoning about the ethics of environmentalism. I am not ready to give up painkillers for my children so that more wild animals can suffer without consent!
Enrico Petrucco 20+
I can not agree with the strict sense of utility where it is being argued, however in the sense of reaching beyond the archaic human utility perspective, I am glad that you seem not to believe that the environment exists purely for human utility but for the utility of all life.
(Constructive co-existence)
In that sense I can only presume that you support the idea of permaculture. Within the ethics of environmentalism, one seeks a balance - not necessarily a control - of the system.
I find the extension of the utilitarian perspective in the sense of your painkiller argument does not retain moral strength when carried to it's rational conclusion: How many animals suffering in the wild are ignored by the very people that defer their attention in order to supply humans with medicine? Surely we should focus on solving the wild animal 'problem' and ignore people from that utilitarian perspective...
(though I admit I held utilitarian perspectives at some point in the past, obviously I am not really proposing that prior statement except as a rationality test)
Allison Walter
Kathleen Kearns
Stephanie Loredo
Ellen Ingamells
Bernd Schröder
There are two dimensions, the suffering of humans and domesticated animals and the suffering of animals in the wild.
The suffering of humans and domesticated animals requires pharmaceutical intervention. I know we have survived without, but at what quality of life? Would you undergo surgery without anesthesia? I'd rather die right now.
The suffering of wild animals is harder for most people to relate to. They think since it is natural, it must somehow be good or at least in an optimal trade-off with quality of life on the planet. I suspect this is rather naive, and it clearly has a religious undercurrent even in seemingly non-religious people - surely Mother Nature wouldn't torture her children? But alas, she does - and routinely so. A deeper analysis on wild animal suffering can be found here: http://www.utilitarian-essays.com/LifeInTheWild20120307.pdf
In conclusion, the crucial question for me is: How much biodiversity do we need? How much biomass must we keep in a more or less natural state, if we don't want human civilization to collapse? Beyond this, it is not ethically optimal to treat environmentalism as a goal in itself. I certainly wouldn't give up painkillers for it, and I wouldn't want to make my children suffer for it either.
Amanda Hooper 50+
Jenna Rosenfeld
Most people don't even KNOW that the products they are taking on a daily basis have a huge impact on organism and ecosystem health. I think there are a few things that need to happen initially for any substantial change to occur. First and foremost, people need to be educated about what they are taking (or could potentially take at some point). This education needs to start at a young age and become part of a consistent curriculum in our school systems. Part of this education should include instructions on how to properly dispose of left over medications.
Secondly, pharmaceutical companies need to invest in treatment. This is the tricky part, for reasons that many people participating in this conversation have already mentioned. But the reality is that the pharmaceutical companies have the resources to turn this problem around. They just need the motivation to do so. Generally speaking, this motivation is not going to come from information about environmental degradation. Pharmaceutical companies need to feel that people are going to stop using their products, or at least limit the use of their products, if a change does not occur. Perhaps if pharmaceutical companies that DO invest in the creation or treatment of products that are environmentally neutral were to advertise this benefit, we could start to see a change? I know that, as someone who takes medications on a regular basis, I would opt for an environmentally friendly drug over one that wasn't. In my opinion, we need to find a way to make environmentally neutral drugs a driving force for competition between big pharmaceutical companies. I realize that this outlook is not considering all contributing factors, but it is something to think about.
Nicholas Schulze
Allison Walter
Alexa Westerbeck
Anders Hansen
This is not to say that drug companies are the only one to blame. In order to change things, we need to cut down our own consumption. There now seems to be a drug for every problem we face. If we decided to let our body solve some of the minor sicknesses and pains by exercising and eating right, we would greatly reduce the amount of drugs in our waterways.
Matthew Nelson
Nickie DeReu
Matthew Nelson
Christina Thommes
rhonda orlando
Josh S
Yes, pharmaceutical companies make millions, but it is only right that they do. They save thousands, millions of lives yearly and earn their pay. You say that they overprice medicine but that is a private system, what you are saying is that you would rather have a government agency responsible for drug consumption, in which case millions would be waiting in line for drugs that take months to arrive.
Now to answer the question: if you had a loved one in bed and dying, would u do whatever it took to give them the drug that will save them? i would and so would most.
Of course, there should be regulations to protect the environment, but not to the point where it hurts the ability of the consumer to obtain the drugs they need.
rhonda orlando
"Whistleblower Dr. David Graham, in testimony before the US Senate, estimated 88,000 to 139,000 Americans experienced heart attacks as a side effect from the drug, and 30 to 40 percent of these died. That would be an estimated 27,000 to 55,000 preventable deaths attributed to Vioxx.
Nobody is saying it, but it looks like Vioxx did kill many thousands of Americans."
"Table Of Iatrogenic Deaths In The United States
(Deaths induced inadvertently by a physician or surgeon or by medical treatment or diagnostic procedures)
These projected figures show that a total of 164 million people, approximately 56 percent of the population of the United States, have been treated unnecessarily by the medical industry—in other words, nearly 50,000 people per day."
I think that might change your life expectancy numbers a bit :)
I didnt mention anything about the third world but since you bring it up. Lets see where diarrhea is a main killer. Oh yeah where Bill Gates is spending money on meds when all they need is cleaner environment, farming, clean food and water, infrastructure.
"Yes, pharmaceutical companies make millions" Youre wrong they make billions. Nobody without insurance can afford their "poison" anyway. Remember people were going to Canada to get the same drugs for less money. Oh the govt and the pharma put a quick end to that.
Now the answer to your answer to the question I never asked. If people lived a healthier lifestyle they wouldn't need the drugs.
I wasnt talking about life threatening situations but since you painted every drug as a life and death situation and everybody on meds really needs them to stay alive. Well thats your own biased opinion. I hope your loved one is not misdiagnosed or over drugged to death.
My conclusion: Do you work for pfizer, merck?
Josh S
I think you are being a bit closed minded, you gave many examples of misdoings by doctors and side affects, with any drug there is. Did you know that all new drugs require on average 12 years to be passed through the FDA, with 8 of those years spent on side affects? Did you know that the life expectancy is 82 years old for males in 2012 in the US, while in 1912 it was 48 years old? Did you know that smallpox, one of the biggest killer in all of history, has been completely wiped off the face of the earth? Did you know that polio has been all but almost eradicated in multiple countries?
unfortunately sir, your short sited view of medicine causes you to miss the BILLIONS of lives saved from infectious diseases. For the trade off of a few thousand , let say even 1 million deaths, 1 billion lives to have been saved is completely worth it.
You talk about mistreatment by doctors, this debate is about medicine and drugs, not by doctor maltreatment which is a different issue..
Summary: life expectancy has increased by nearly 100% in 100 years, the most deadly disease of the past (smallpox) has been eradicated, and millions are safer. There is no question that drugs and medicine are the best solution
Enrico Petrucco 20+
However, IF one has or might have a serious disease then nearly no one is really questioning the right to access life-saving chemicals (especially vaccine).
Though not fully amassed, and only applicable in the USA, if you would like to know whether your doctor is in the pocket of drug company then you might start here:
http://projects.propublica.org/docdollars/
Living in England, with the NHS, I find my access to healthcare most suitable, just as I am sure those living in Hawaii find US government healthcare suitable.
'Conventional' wisdom must not be left behind by those studying in a field if it is relevant. It is inappropriate to suggest that moral considerations might be sidelined due to historical numbers in a 'trade off'. This conversation is about responsible drug use... 'Drugs and medicine' are NOT always the best solution to human ailments. If we can be more responsible and intelligent, then surely no one would really argue against doing so?
How could certain societies not consider the obvious requirement to divert chemical contamination of the environment in light of clear evidence?
Allison Walter
peter lindsay 30+
Katie Bergus
Alternatively, the pharmaceuticals that are intended for profit, designers drugs like Viagra, serve to improve quality of life but do not save lives. These types of drugs are the pollutants that society should have greater consciousness about. These are the drugs that we should try to limit our use of, for the sake of the environment at the very least.
However, herein lies a significant problem: it is incredibly costly to produce effective and safe, life-saving drugs. Money does not flood into pharmaceutical companies to produce these drugs like money floods in to produce designer drugs. This makes the blemish of high prescription rates by doctors for unnecessary drugs in the reputations of pharmaceutical companies almost unavoidable in order for these companies to get the capital necessary to produce the good drugs.
Pharmaceutical companies are really a catch-22. I don't want birth control and schizophrenia medicine in the water that I drink or in the water near where I live, harming fish, but private financing simply isn't enough for these companies to research and develop the truly beneficial drugs that I, like many others, do want produced.
Matthew Kinsella 50+
Clare Forrest