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Mussels test positive for opioids in Seattle's Puget Sound
- johnmorrow 8y agoWhat a waste of drugs on an animal that doesn’t even have a central nervous system
- thfuran 8y ago>high enough oxycodone levels for the shellfish to test positive That doesn't really tell me anything. Are they testing by taste or by some fancy test that can detect down to 1 ppq?
- tzakrajs 8y agoHigh enough levels that workers compensation insurance would not cover these mussels in a workplace injury. The mussel's personal insurance would need to cover the loss instead.
- iopuy 8y agoEven the mussel's personal insurance would not generally cover situations resulting from deliberate (in the insurers eyes) drug ingestion. Unless the mussel could prove it was contamination of his environment.
- jdonaldson 8y agoIt puts the mussels in a terrible place. There's no active labor unions for molluscs, and the lack of a temperature controlled brine pool in many civic courts prevents them from testifying directly.
- wpietri 8y agoAbsolutely true. The lack of a union means that if molluscs with on-the-job injuries are asked about drug use, they should just clam up.
- cbanek 8y agoThis could also possibly fall under the dominion of the little understood maritime law.
- kweinber 8y agoAgreed... the good old days were better when the big mussels were only into steroids.
- lostlogin 8y agoDepends on the country though. Those mussels would be covered for accidental injury in New Zealand, regardless of accident mechanism or drug test result. Unless they had a preexisting condition or course, then they have a real problem.
- DrScump 8y agoMollusks are placed at even greater risk by their own deviant behaviors, as described in this BBC documentary: https://youtu.be/8R2zvE615dM https://youtu.be/8R2zvE615dM
- refurb 8y agoExactly. Some analytical techniques can detect incredibly small amounts of chemicals. It's kind of like saying "Water tests positive for arsenic!", then finding it's 5 ppb and the EPA limit for drinking water is 10 ppb.
- fanzhang 8y agoJust to do the Fermi problem math for fun, how much heroin is needed to reach detectability in Puget Sound? Assume 1 ppq detection rates (like many spectroscopic methods claim to do). Puget sound is 110 km^3 or 1.10E14 liters of water. That's 6.05E15 moles of water. At one ppq (1E15), you need 6.05 moles of heroin. This comes out to about 2.2 kilograms. Now in terms of doses, that's a lot of doses. But that's not a lot if a drug runner could have just tossed a single brick in to reach that concentration (or emptied a single car boot in haste).
- cgb223 8y agoBut this is coming from human waste, how much of a filter does the human body act on heroin? If a person puts a gram of 100% pure heroin (another good question might be how purity affects the measurements) in to their body, how much will come out the other end? Also, from a chemistry perspective, how does water bring a solvent affect opioid molecules existing? Would the water or various things in the water break down the molecules into other non detectable molecules?
- scythe 8y agoAccording to Figure 4 on page 410, it seems that 10% of ingested heroin is excreted as morphine, the other 90% as morphine glucuronides: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Wim_Van_den_Brink/publication/7196280_Population_Pharmacokinetics_of_Heroin_and_its_Major_Metabolites/links/02bfe50ec087f21de3000000.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Wim_Van_den_Brink/publi... However, it is not clear if the glucuronides would be picked up by the test. Morphine glucuronides -- particularly morphine-3-glucuronide -- can hydrolyse back to morphine. It seems that the morphine molecule is largely not destroyed metabolically; the glucuronide moiety is more like a molecular "tag" that tells the kidney to get rid of something.
- fanzhang 8y agoTrue. So if we presume all the opoids are from human bodily waste, we would need divide by 10% (the amount excreted out): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxycodone#Metabolism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxycodone#Metabolism Probably the molecule does break up with a certain half life, either due to sun, or other animals metabolising it, etc. Then that 2.2 kg brick needs to be replaced once every two half-lives. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2991390/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2991390/ Gives really hand-wavy half-life of many drugs in the environment as about 500 days, so the brick needs to be replaced every 1000 days. Also 1 ppq is the lower bound. I think 1 ppt is quite reasonable for many methods though, so that can multiply the limit by 1000x. All the factors above can increase the threshold amount of opoids, but here are some factors that can decrease it substantially: There are people who dump unused drugs in, so that needs no attenuation factor. Also, mussels are filter feeders, and oxycodone might accumulate in them substantially more (like 1000x+) than the background. Finally, where they collected the mussels is probably correlated with sewage drains due to ease of human access, so the effective "volume of distribution" can be way less than the 110 km^3. All that is to say, the real statistics are in the overdose calls for opoids. The headline is still an interesting cocktail-party line, but probably should be taken as a statement just by itself.
- casefields 8y agoIt's like cocaine being on most bills. Headline is true but misleading readers. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/drug-money-2/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/drug-money-2/
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- mywittyname 8y agoIs oxycodone altered in anyway by human consumption or do we excrete the same substance that is put into our veins? I don't know enough about pharmacology, but I would think that this is more indicative of the dumping of unused opioids than use of.
- gramstrong 8y agoWhen humans ingest opioids like oxycodone, they ultimately end up excreting traces of the drugs into the toilet. Those chemicals then end up in wastewater. And while many contaminants are filtered out of wastewater before it's released into the oceans, wastewater management systems can't entirely filter out drugs. Thus, opioids, antidepressants, the common chemotherapy drug Melphalan -- the mussels tested positive for all of them. Source: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mussels-test-positive-for-opioids-seattle-puget-sound/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mussels-test-positive-for-opioi...
- zitterbewegung 8y agoYou can’t metabolize all of your medicine all of the time.
- refurb 8y agoOxycodone and its metabolites are excreted primarily via the kidney. The amounts measured in the urine have been reported as follows: free oxycodone up to 19%; conjugated oxycodone up to 50%; free oxymorphone 0%; conjugated oxymorphone ≤ 14%; both free and conjugated noroxycodone have been found in the urine but not quantified.[1] [1]https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2008/020553s059lbl.pdf https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2008/02...
- newnewpdro 8y agoRelated https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcMIeyjggbM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcMIeyjggbM
- qop 8y agoThey're musseling into the Seattle opioid industry?
- Iwan-Zotow 8y agoMicrosofties or Amazones?
- reaperducer 8y agoExpedians.
- edf13 8y agoKey para... "What we eat and what we excrete goes into the Puget Sound," Jennifer Lanksbury, a biologist at the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, told CBS News affiliate KIRO. ...so enough crap going into the water from the local population to be picked up in the Mussel samples... Crazy!
- Maybestring 8y agoWaste water treatment doesn't remove drugs, so they make it out into the water, and the filter feeders pick it up.
- lostlogin 8y agoWaste water can be tested to give an idea of population drug usage. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11948857 https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&object...
- 49bc 8y agoI’m surprised the chemicals don’t quickly break down in the salty sea water. Do ocean environments affect half-life of pharmaceuticals differently?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- whistlerbrk 8y agoWater shields double bonds from UV light preventing them from breaking down. For examples of this look no further than PCBs (polychorinated biphenyls, not circuit boards)
- jschwartzi 8y agoA fun fact that a friend of mine shared is that there are trace amounts of sucralose in our water supply. It turns out that inert sweeteners that are not digested just get excreted, and since it's not a molecule found in nature they don't break down quickly.
- konceptz 8y agoDoes this 100% mean that humans are consuming high amounts of these opioids or could there be another explanation? Like someone dumped a boat of pills into the sound.
- droopybuns 8y ago“The solution to pollution is dilution!”
- __jal 8y agoDepends on how many mussels they're eating... More seriously, unless you're looking for an indirect measure of consumption, does it matter? Human action either way, and it is there either way.
- grosjona 8y agoMaybe the mussels saw a gap in the market and decided to start producing it.
- spsrich 8y agoI wonder if a mussel can get high
- mmaunder 8y agoCould also mean people are throwing them down the drain. Seems that standard issue for post op pain prescription here in PNW is 20 oxy. I don't know anyone who has taken more than a few. 20 is a lot.
- freeflight 8y ago> I don't know anyone who has taken more than a few. You don't need to know people who "take more than a few" for them to actually exist. At this point, the opiate problem in the US is pretty much an established fact and most certainly does not boil down to people just washing their spares down the drain.
- mmaunder 8y agoThe article says we have oxy in the ocean. I'm exploring possible causes.
- patmorgan23 8y agoI think the above commenter was trying to emphasize how much oxy that is rather than trying to deny the opiad crisis.
- empath75 8y agoI think he’s just saying that some reasonably large amount are just thrown away. Not most or all. I threw away at least 20 or 30 after my appendectomy.
- taurath 8y agoI dunno, with as many needles that are found around parks here nowadays, I'd bet a fair amount of people are chucking them into the ocean.
- drb91 8y agoHell it could just be someone accidentally dropped an entire stash of fentanyl in the bay.
- 8y ago
- rbanffy 8y agoI knew it! They always seemed way too happy and peaceful.
- txsh 8y agoAs someone who has had frequent kidney stones, I have found that many painkiller prescriptions are unnecessary. Kidney stones are more painful than childbirth and I’ve been hospitalized for then before. But prescription painkillers rarely get rid of the pain. People seem to be reluctant to mix medications for fear of drug interactions. They want a strong dose of one substance. But nothing has worked for me better than mixing acetaminophen with ibuprofen or with naproxen. All are cheap, available over the counter, and have fewer side effects than prescription pain killers. I also find that, after the initial pain subsides, I can more quickly reduce the dosage of these drugs than I could with prescription painkillers. By all means, use oxy if you need it. But please consider trying alternatives first so you can avoid addiction.
- Kenji 8y agoTo be honest, I think alcohol is the strongest painkiller that's readily available. When I was in pain for weeks, none of the pain killers did anything but when I drank one large beer, the pain was pretty much gone for the next couple of hours. Of course you cannot stay drunk forever but you also cannot stay on painkillers forever, and both are taking a toll on your liver. I don't know, maybe it depends on the person, how your body reacts to different substances.
- KempFood 8y agoToo late for some! When trying to kick opiods, I recommend cannabis. Any narcotic works wonders through opioid withdrawal, and cannabis is so safe. Although you might become 'addicted', it's easier than controlling opioid intake.
- xapata 8y ago> mixing acetaminophen with ibuprofen It's a well-documented (in scientific literature) phenomenon that the mix of a standard dose of both acetaminophen and ibuprofen provides the same or better pain relief as opioids. This is what medical schools currently teach. You can read Maxigesic sales forecasts if you'd like a glowing review. > use [OxyContin] if you need it As far as I know, no one "needs" it (for pain relief, unless already addicted). By suggesting so, you're creating a placebo effect. > [@Kenji] it depends on the person Responding to a dead sibling comment: There are some differences observed for anesthetic response. The "red head rule" is interesting and suggests that different people might have different responses to various drugs. However, I'm not aware of any differentiation known for acetaminophen or ibuprofen response. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1362956/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1362956/
- pesfandiar 8y agoWhat's interesting is that opiods are probably not Seattle's most prominent poison of choice with traces in Puget Sound: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/07/120730-caffeinated-seas-pacific-northwest-caffeine-coffee-science/ https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/07/120730-caff...
- aviv 8y agoAs if we needed more reasons to not eat seafood. Oceans are too contaminated, especially that part of the world.
- Bud 8y agoAnother worthless, alarmist, innumerate article. Without data on the levels of opioids found, this article is worthless; it literally has no value, so to speak.
- tejtm 8y agoon the up side at least it may make them as happy as clams[1] reproducing per the 1998 Ignobles[2] [1] https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Prozac+works+on+clams+and+mussels.-a020212410 https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Prozac+works+on+clams+and+mus... [2] https://www.improbable.com/ig/winners/#ig1998 https://www.improbable.com/ig/winners/#ig1998
- josefdlange 8y agoAs a member of the community to whom this particular mussel economy is very important, this is disconcerting. At the same time, it's worth mentioning that the mussels in question were cultivated out here in cleaner waters and then _transported_ to urban shorelines. The results are a possible window into what's to come if we don't curb our rate of pollution in the region, but not representative of what's currently in the mussels that get to your plate.
- dluan 8y agoI live on the water in West Seattle close to a park, and by the shore we found some seaweed that we wanted to harvest and maybe, potentially eat. I got curious about where in the sound is safe to eat things from. Pretty much the entire sound is polluted and a hazard. https://fortress.wa.gov/doh/eh/maps/biotoxin/biotoxin.html https://fortress.wa.gov/doh/eh/maps/biotoxin/biotoxin.html
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- ransom1538 8y agoThey just dump human waste into the water. I can't even watch people eat shellfish. "One hundred and six wastewater treatment plants, discharging as much as 97,000 pounds of chemicals each year, are located around Puget Sound." https://news.vice.com/article/seattle-area-salmon-are-loaded-with-anti-depressants-and-other-drugs-thanks-to-human-waste https://news.vice.com/article/seattle-area-salmon-are-loaded...
- darpa_escapee 8y agoThis is the case pretty much anywhere near a coastline. I refuse to eat locally caught seafood.
- throwaway2019 8y agoit’s somebodies “local coastline” elsewhere too so that might not help you
- EpicEng 8y agoNot all fishing is coastal.
- gwbas1c 8y agoAmerican-caught seafood has the strictest regulations in the world; and is the safest.
- pvaldes 8y agoCarrying drugs inside their body is a common moule bussiness, yup. Hence their name.
- axedwool 8y agoThe opioid crisis is out of control. Even mussels are ODing.
- mirimir 8y agoThis is pure clickbait. Sure, opioids are detectable in mussels from Puget Sound. That reflects the sad fact that Puget Sound is horribly polluted. I suspect that levels of some pollutants are high enough to damage human and ecosystem health. Organomercury compounds, for example. But what gets the focus is opioids. Because it's good clickbait. Edit: Following pesfandiar's link about caffeine pollution in the Pacific Northwest, I found this about Puget Sound:[0] > Of all the flavors trickling downstream, artificial vanilla dominates the sound, Keil said. For instance, the team found an average of about six milligrams of artificial vanilla per liter of water sampled. Yes, 6 mg/L in water! That's not trace contamination. But "Puget Sound is vanilla flavored!" isn't so scarey, I guess. 0) https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/11/091112-drinking-water-cocaine.html https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/11/091112-drin...
- chiefalchemist 8y agoWe know there's pollution. However, we do not expect it to be a prescription drug. This isn't a factory dumping lead or some other chemical. This is enough individuals pissing oxy / opiods that it shows up "down stream." This isn't click bait silly. This is another wake up call. So wake up.
- mirimir 8y agoNo, we have known about drugs in the environment. For many years. In parts of India, it's a bloody nightmare.
- bjelkeman-again 8y agoBut clearly we haven’t woken up enough to do something about it.
- mirimir 8y agoI'm not sure what there is to do. It's really hard to remove stuff from wastewater that doesn't sink, float, get metabolized by microorganisms or plants, or get removed by sand filters.
- peter303 8y agoNot too long ago sex hormones were detectable in seawater. Apparently some women excrete of their birth control medications. Human drug use has far reaching side effects.
- gdubs 8y agoI’ve been studying / beginning to practice permaculture for a little while now and one thing that is often discussed is the subject of human waste. When you take food out of the ground and consume it, you’ve removed some fertility from the ground. Either you have animals put it back in as manure, or you use some kind of synthetic fertilizer. When the food goes through your body, you’re also generating manure. But typically we ship it off to some central location where it becomes a massive collection of toxic waste. The permaculture argument is that if we kept as much of that waste on site as possible, we’d be recycling nutrients rather than not only wasting them, but creating toxic hazards due to the size of the collections. On a small scale, think of how fertile the ground over a septic field is — wildflowers and grass will grow like crazy. The more, er, devoted will go as far as installing composting toilets. The reason I think this is relevant is that when the waste stays local, you’re much more conscious about what’s in it. If you have a septic system, you really don’t want pills going into it — especially if you also have well water. When it’s being flushed to some unknown location it’s easy to not give it a second thought.
- dekhn 8y agoTL;DR filter feeders concentrate chemicals, and we have very sensitive equipment. Clickbait kid science.