Green drugs down the toilet

The “Green” movement has set its sights on a new consumer market: green pharmaceuticals. Slate reports that hysteria about the effect of consumers flushing pills down the toilet — including hypothetical claims that intersex minnows found in water were contaminated by pharmaceuticals — has prompted some environmentalists to suggest that manufacturers should reformulate popular drugs to render them more biodegradable.

“This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” says ACSH’s Dr. Josh Bloom. “Let’s take a bunch of drugs that work and make them not work. It’s difficult enough to discover and develop a drug. To add another layer to this would drastically slow down an already incredibly long, complex process. This is just another ‘solution’ to a non-problem, one that will create its own unintended consequences.”