There are thousands of pharmaceuticals in use today. Some pharmaceuticals have been found in water and have raised concerns about the potential risks they pose to both humans and our ecosystems. These pharmaceuticals tend to make their way in to our waters primarily through excretion of active drugs directly from patients and subsequent incomplete removal of those pharmaceuticals from our wastewater during wastewater treatment. This webinar described our estimates of potential risks to people as well as aquatic life by combining aquatic concentration information with available dose-response data. This analysis includes data from our recent study of pharmaceutical concentrations in effluent samples from 50 very large municipal wastewater plants located across the United States. Contributors: Mitch Kostich, Angela Batt, Susan Glassmeyer, and Jim Lazorchak.

Pharmaceutical Residues in Municipal Wastewater Webinar Supplemental Materials 

Presented by Mitch Kostich

Mitch Kostich is a Research Biologist with EPA’s National Exposure Research Laboratory in Cincinnati, Ohio. Mitch’s research focus is the application of emerging measurement technologies and data science to the characterization of risks posed by chemical contaminants. In his spare time, Mitch enjoys playing with his kids, hiking, swimming, biking, and brewing beer.