Human health risk assessment from the presence of human pharmaceuticals in the aquatic environment

Assessments for potential impact to human health from environmental exposures were carried out for 44 active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) marketed by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), representing approximately 22 general pharmacological classes exhibiting a broad spectrum of therapeutic activities. These assessments use the considerable amount of information available on the human pharmacology and toxicology of the APIs to develop acceptable daily intakes (ADIs) which are believed to be without pharmacological or toxicological effect. With the exception of the anti-cancer drugs and some antibiotics, the minimum dose producing the intended therapeutic effect was typically used as the point of departure for calculation of ADIs. The ADI values were used to generate predicted no effect concentrations from environmental exposure for human health (PNECHHs) from drinking water or fish consumption. These PNECs were compared to predicted environmental concentrations (PECs) calculated using the regional assessment models PhATE™ for North America and GREAT-ER for Europe. Risk was characterized by calculating the ratio of the 90th percentile PECs to the PNECHHs. For the APIs reported here, these ratios are less than one for all of the compounds, varying from 7 × 10−2 to 6 × 10−11, indicating that based upon currently available data, these compounds do not appear to pose an appreciable risk to human health from potential environmental exposure from drinking water and fish consumption.