That would make sense back in the day. With today's diet of processed garbage and an overload of pharmaceuticals in people's bodies I wouldn't want to eat those crops.
Anything pharmaceutical naturally degrades over time from exposure to heat, light, water, oxygen, etc. That's organic chem 101, and it's why some drugs have short shelf lives while others have long ones and why some drugs come in brown bottles.
Take any pharmaceutical you excrete as waste and put it in the natural environment. Not only is it exposed to all of the above that I mentioned, but also to a mix of bacteria which also may absorb and break it down. Only exceptionally stable molecules will concentrate (think: DDT, for example). These have unique chemistry and I cannot think of many examples where such molecules are used in pharmacy, though there are some. We have special handling rules for those.
If they get past all of the normal physical, chemical, and biological processes that would rip those molecules to shreds, there is another barrier. You have to get it through the roots' cell walls into the plant. Plants, like animals are specific about what they absorb into their cells.
The point is that I'd want to see actual proof that they're actually finding concentrations of these molecules in plants in meaningful concentrations before I'm going to jump up and down worrying about it. We need to be eating more fresh fruits and veggies, generally, not less. Healthy diet = healthy immune system so we avoid needing pharma in the first place.
Like we used to...use it as fertiliser for crops
That would make sense back in the day. With today's diet of processed garbage and an overload of pharmaceuticals in people's bodies I wouldn't want to eat those crops.
Plants are resilient. Consider:
Anything pharmaceutical naturally degrades over time from exposure to heat, light, water, oxygen, etc. That's organic chem 101, and it's why some drugs have short shelf lives while others have long ones and why some drugs come in brown bottles.
Take any pharmaceutical you excrete as waste and put it in the natural environment. Not only is it exposed to all of the above that I mentioned, but also to a mix of bacteria which also may absorb and break it down. Only exceptionally stable molecules will concentrate (think: DDT, for example). These have unique chemistry and I cannot think of many examples where such molecules are used in pharmacy, though there are some. We have special handling rules for those.
If they get past all of the normal physical, chemical, and biological processes that would rip those molecules to shreds, there is another barrier. You have to get it through the roots' cell walls into the plant. Plants, like animals are specific about what they absorb into their cells.
The point is that I'd want to see actual proof that they're actually finding concentrations of these molecules in plants in meaningful concentrations before I'm going to jump up and down worrying about it. We need to be eating more fresh fruits and veggies, generally, not less. Healthy diet = healthy immune system so we avoid needing pharma in the first place.