CHEM 183 Chapter Notes - Chapter MT1: Peanut Butter, Dermatology, Coenzyme Q10
7 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
2014 US : $276 billion prescription drugs, 50% US residents have used at least 1 prescription drug in 30 days, majority over 60 takes 2
or more drugs per day
- only 70-90% are consumed, $5 billion gone to waste, can expire, change drugs, stop taking them
- US government requires drug companies to set up take-back containers at drugstores or other public locations where consumers drop off
unwanted drugs for safe disposal, avoid water contamination, decrease wastes and overprescribing by doctors
- ex of effect : birth control drugs are potent endocrine disruptor, cause male fish to grow female sex organs
- Canada, Mexico and France have federal requirements for government and industry to handle this tog, but not the US
- drug industry claimed that the new requirements interfered with interstate commerce -> found lawful by the court
- drug industry also claimed that most drug in the environment come from people taking them and excreting what isn’t absorbed by the
body, no reason to put money to collet unwanted pharmaceuticals
- France’s national takeback program (highest-performing in the world) : operates for ~%0.15/person/year
- King County estimates that it costs $1 million/year, which is ~$0.49/capita in the early years
Can be up to 50 different drugs in the water at one place -> hard to test each drug’s effect on the water
- some sewage systems can break down pharmaceutical compounds, but expensive, and harder to operate as drug varieties increase
Over prescription :
- have a tooth pulled : get 30 days of Vicodin instead of 10 days of Tylenol
- its often cheaper to get months worth of drugs at once, rather than monthly refiling the prescription -> lead to inventory of unused drugs
- prescription drug abuse, over half report that they took drugs prescribed to friends or family members
- drug overdoses for legal/illegal drugs have become the leading cause of injury and death in 37 states
- prescription drugs is addressed as pollution in the UN’s 4th international conference on chemical management
~80,000 chemicals in consumer products
- hard to determine acute toxicity, long term effect is hard to study, mostly based on animal studies, patterns of exposure, knowledge of
metabolism and guesswork
- decision whether a substance is allowed takes into account : importance of the substance, availability of safe replacements, economic
impact on society (ex. greater risk is acceptable with fire retardants than with nail polish)
2-methoxyethanol : synthetic, commercial applications
- functions : industrial solvent, dye dispersing agent, additive to military jet fuel to prevent ice formation, cleaning agent for white boards
- adverse effect on fetal development in animals (no toxic effect on the mother), teratogenic effects can signal the possibility of miscarriages,
stillbirths, low-birth-weight babies and hormal disruptions in exposed humans
- risk analysis based on number of bottles sold, but how many end up with pregnant women or people seeking to have a child -> 22 pregnant
women + 100 adults trying to have babies are exposed based on statistics -> miniscule segment of the population
- viable/safe replacement, methoxyethanol in the class of glycol ether : diethylene glycol methyl ether and diethylene glycol monobutyl
ether can replace e-methoxyethanol in virtually all uses, similar but not identical properties -> no teratogenic risks
- 2-methoxyethanol isn’t produced in Canada, cost of replacement is similar -> ban has no economic impact -> banned in Canada
DBPE (decabromodiphenylether) : fire retardant in fabrics and plastic products -> can cause problems, but also save lives
- PBDE (pentabromodiphenyl ether) and OBDE (octabromodiphenylether) are not produced, linked to reprudctiv eproblems in animals
- DBPE is less toxic, but studies have hinted at leaning/memory/behavioral problems in mice, no human problems yet linked to DBPE
- can break down in the environment to yield PBDE and OBDE
Influenza : Harvard studied data from 121 US cities, showed that decline in air travel after 911 delayed the US’s annual flu season by ~2
weeks -> suggest that this could slow down flu pandemic, but computer models found the effect to be skeptical
- SARS in 2003 -> belief that global mobility helps spread infections, researchers say the most important disease vector is Boeing 747
- studies conclude that air-travel restriction doesn’t slow down flu pandemic by much -> unless they are 99% effective, border controls
and internal travel restrictions doesn’t slow viral spread by more than 2-3 weeks
- real data : 27% reduction in international air-travel after 911 caused 13 day delay in 2001-2002 influenza
- 1996-2005 data : found correlation between higher air-travel volumes in the fall and a slightly earlier flue season
- extrapolations suggest that a complete travel ban may delay a flue pandemic by ~2 months, precious time to activate countermeasures
and work on a vaccine
- some claim that relationship between air travel and influenza spread is only empirical evidence
- travel bans is studied by most governments and rejected, and WHO considers it impractical to ban travel -> but as footnote, “could be
considered as an emergency measure to avert or delay a pandemic”
Oral food challenge (food allergy test) : gold standard to rule out an allergy, whether one can tolerate a food they once reacted to
- blood test measures IgE level, higher IgE means more likely a person has an allergic reaction
- only way to see whether sb has outgrown an allergy is to eat a small quantities and the increasing quantity under medical supervision
- 4% US population has food allergies
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
10
CHEM 183 Full Course Notes
Verified Note
10 documents
