Journal of Rafsanjan University of Medical Sciences

  Background and Objectives: Pharmaceutical pollution of the eco-system is a life-threatening problem cuasing great concerns for health researchers. Pharmaceutical pollution of drinking waters and its adverse side-effects on public health has been recently reported in the developed countries. The aim of this study was to investigate the different aspects of bio-environmental side effects of pharmaceutical pollutions mentioned in online resources and websites .

  Materials and Methods: For this review study, the main key words of "Pharmaceutical" and "pollution" were searched through Google scholar search engine, Springer and Elsevier sites. By altering the research strategy, the most up-to-date references, articles, books and related subjects focusing on different cities of our country, Iran, were retrieved.

  Results: The findings of this search showed that large amounts of chemical sewage is released into the environment by pharmaceutical factories. The other sources of contamination are as folows: expired and unused drugs, and excreted pharmaceutical metabolites formed during drug metabolism in humans and animals. Unfortunately many researches confirmed that the conventional water treatment processes are not effective for reasonable purification of drinking waters. Additionally, due to the long half-life of some drugs especially antibiotics, the risks of drug resistance, mutagenic effects on microorganisms and other cells, and their environmental accumulation are high and may lead to hazardous consequences. So more studies in this field are warranted.

  Key words: Pharmaceuticals pollutions, Environment, Drug resistance, Public health

  Funding: This study was funded by Rafsanjan Univercity of Medical Sciences.

  Conflict of interest: None declared.

  Ethical approval: The Ethics Committee of Rafsanjan Univercity of Medical Sciences approved the study

  How t o cite this article: Sayadi A.R, Asadpour M, Shabani Z, Sayadi M.H. Pharmaceutical Pollution of the eco-system and Its Detrimental Effects on Public Health. J Rafsanjan Univ Med Scie 2012 11(3): 269-84. [Farsi]