Pharmaceutical residues in the environment are a global topic highlighted by OECD as of particular importance because they can affect the photosynthetic activity of primary producers and subsequently the primary biomass production and carbon dioxide fixation. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has proposed to implement a new tailored environmental risk assessment scheme, published in a new draft guideline. Threshold effect levels to three fixed representative species of green algae and cyanobacteria will be required.
In an upcoming article in the CHIMIA International Journal for Chemistry special Environment issue this coming Spring, IES will explore this topic. Our authors Arno Wess, Stefan Höger and Schmidt Thomas will review and compare contamination of various different natural waters with antibiotics, as well as present an overview of published effect data on eukaryotic and prokaryotic algae in order to discuss the representativeness of the selected species.
You can find out more about the CHIMIA Journal on their official website: https://chimia.ch/
