Does environmental exposure result in antibacterial resistance?
A wide range of antibacterial substances has been observed in waters and soils and many of these persist for some time. It is possible that such exposure will result in the formation of antibacterial resistant microbes which could pose a threat to human and animal health. It will be impossible to perform studies to answer these questions for every substance so it is important that future work is targeted to understand the processes underlying the release, environmental fate and effects of pharmaceuticals. Such an understanding should ultimately allow the development of modelling approaches which should then allow us to better understand the impacts of pharmaceuticals on the environment. In the meantime, we should strive to refine the ways in which we use and handle and treat medicines in order to minimise releases to the environment.
