Pharmaceuticals and personal care products—we can't livewithout them. Can the environment survive with them?

Pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) areincreasingly being recognized as micropollutants. In this context,pharmaceutical products encompass a diverse range of drugs used totreat various illnesses, and personal care products includeeveryday items such as soaps, fragrances, cleaning agents,disinfectants, and similar products. Written for professionals fromdifferent backgrounds, Pharma-Ecology bridges the knowledgeand language gap and critically examines the issue of PPCPmicropollutants and how to best minimize their impact on theenvironment. Organized systematically, it:

• Presents a range of pharmaceutical compounds categorized bymode of action and common usage, displaying the volumes (or numberof prescriptions) that are dispersed
• Discusses the detection of PPCPs in the environment usinginstrumentation and bioassay techniques, including microarrays
• Covers the occurrences of PPCPs in aquatic systems, sediments,soil, and aerial environments
• Considers the persistence and degradation of PPCPs in theenvironment, and links pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics with thekinetics of PPCPs in the environment
• Explores engineering and treatment techniques that couldminimize the impact of PPCPs in the environment
• Includes numerous tables and figures that illustrateinformation

This is an enlightening reference for engineers, toxicologists,ecologists, micro-biologists, and chemists involved in pollutionand environmental analysis; policy-makers; professionals in federaland state regulatory agencies; and pharmaceutical professionals. Itis also an excellent text for undergraduate and graduate studentsin related fields.