European fish are going 'crazy' with medicines dumped in rivers

The newspaper El Mundo recently published a least disturbing news: Anxiety drugs taken by European citizens have been poured into rivers, affecting local fauna. Some of these drugs come into the water through the urine of the patients who take them and also because many still insist on disposing of these medicines by throwing them in the toilet. According to a study published by the University of Umea, Sweden, even treated, the discharge waters contain drugs that end up affecting the environment.

To reach this conclusion, researchers looked at the effect of a common drug, Oxazepan, on a specific species of fish, Perch fluviatilis (image above). The results indicated not only the presence of these anxiolytics in the rivers of Sweden, but also the fact that the perches in that region are eating faster, becoming more fearless and behaving less socially, leaving groups and living. alone.

The effects could be proven in laboratories, and the fish behaved atypically even when exposed to a lower dosage than found in Swedish rivers. For scientists, the fact that these fish started to feed faster is quite worrying, as this can trigger ecological problems, such as an imbalance in the food chain of that ecosystem.