Pharmaceuticals as Environmental Contaminants: Modelling Distribution and Fate

Concern is growing over the environmental consequences of the use of drugs for human and animal health. Long term treatments for several illnesses are a common mass practice in human health care (e.g. diuretics, beta blockers, antibiotics), a number of females are taking daily hormones to prevent unwanted pregnancies, modern life stress is handled very frequently through sedatives and tranquillizers, moreover there is in animal farming a general trend towards the intensification of production methods and production gains based on greater reliance on pharmaceuticals, feed additives, hormones and potent parasiticides (Halling-Sørensen et al. 1998).