Human Pharmaceuticals in the Environment: Current and Future Perspectives

Over the past 2 decades the implications of endocrine disruption and modula- tion have permeated public consciousness, scienti fi c inquiry, regulatory frame- works, and management decisions in the environmental and biomedical sciences. Publication of Colburn, Dumanoski, and Myers’ “Our Stolen Future [ 9] ,” which is often referred to as the second coming of Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring [ 10] ,” stimulated the public, scienti fi c, and regulatory attention given to endocrine dis- ruptors and ultimately in fl uenced the environmental studies of human pharma- ceuticals [ 11] . For example, human reproductive developmental perturbations elicited by the estrogenic human pharmaceutical diethylstilbestrol...