In Response: Governmental perspective

摘要

The answer to the question "Do human pharmaceuticals present a risk to the environment?" is gaining knowledge and closing data gaps. In Germany alone there are approximately 1200 human pharmaceutical substances on the market (IMS MIDAS~®, 2013), which are likely to occur at physiologically relevant concentrations in the environment. The majority of them lack a proper environmental risk assessment. This is especially true for those substances that received European Medicines Agency marketing authorization before 2006-that is, before environmental risk assessment became obligatory in Europe. Even for well-known substances such as ibuprofen, diclofenac, and carbamazepine, there are insufficient data for a complete environmental risk assessment, thus not fulfilling the legal requirements according to the European Medicines Agency guideline.