Posted on 10/01/2009 1:01:09 AM PDT by neverdem
Aint that just ducky?
So why is the active form showing up? Is this drug unable to be metabolized? I thought essentially all pharmaceuticals were metabolized or the active form is bound in the body. What other drugs are we not metabolizing? Maybe that’s what we get for giving the drug out to people who are not using to fight the virus. Makes me question efficacy or diagnostic criteria.
I think it acts more like an anticatalyst. Tamiflu is a neuraminidase inhibitor (the ‘N’ in H1N1). It essentially prevents the virus from releasing itself after infecting a cell. The amounts actually used in the body will be minute for that reason. If it was more complex the body would metabolize it further I’d assume. Many prescription drugs are not fully metabolized and released into sewage or pass through filtering back into the water supply, birth control pills are a big one.
Khadaffi was right. Here comes the fish flu...
Our ped wanted our sons to take Tamiflu last year. Besides the price (over $100 with insurance) we read how it can cause hallucinations in children. No sale.
A nanogram is a one billionth of a gram. Somehow I don’t think a few molecules of tamiflu per liter of water is going to do anything. Not unless a single bird can drink about 100 liters of water.
Eggs Ackley! Our ability to now test for minute fractions of this or that leads to these wild stories.
Thanks for clearing that up. I am more familiar with drugs of abuse in my field.
I wouldn’t expect any of this to be a problem.
Tamiflu isn’t a form of a virus. It’s merely a chemical that blocks the virus from infecting other cells.
I’d guess anything related to metabolites would, inherently, break down further along the chain. Certain mushrooms excluded. The more I read about what gets through our supposedly clean water the more beer I drink. :)
“Many prescription drugs are not fully metabolized and released into sewage or pass through filtering back into the water supply, birth control pills are a big one.”
Hence the heavy antibiotic smell you get in urine sometimes when you have to take them!
“Many prescription drugs are not fully metabolized and released into sewage or pass through filtering back into the water supply, birth control pills are a big one.”
Hence the heavy antibiotic smell you get in urine sometimes when you have to take them!
Just one more thing I don’t intend to worry about.
Ahem..........!
Then we will be taxed for each time we flush because that will be the only way to "save" birds.
Seriously, I find that the environment is being messed up by Pharmacutical companies. If they stopped creating new useless drugs then our earth would be "greener". OTOH, have there been studies about how many vitamins are in our water?
Like finding a Crumb in a giant bakery!
Indeed. This should be the least of our worries when our rivers, lakes and oceans are full of lethal levels of dihydrogen monoxide.
Some drugs are excreted unchanged. Their fate in the environment has usually been an afterthought.
Killjoy...
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