Antibiotics in the Environment: Zinc Bacitracin — Environmental Toxicity and Breakdown

Abstract

If one accepts the statement that any pharmaceutical or its breakdown product(s) may represent potential hazard(s) to the environment, it is implicit that antibiotics stay in the first row as candidates capable of influencing upon the environment. As mentioned in greater details in Chap. 18, many studies have been carried out in order to study the half-life of antibiotics in natural sediments as well as development of resistant microorganisms. The term “eco-shadow” has been introduced as a mode of describing alteration(s) in an ecosystem following exposure of the system to an antibiotic (or any other pharmaceutical). It has been shown that some groups of antibiotics, such as tetracyclines and especially the newer fluoroquinolones, can be present in the environment for weeks, months or even years after they have been given for prophylactic or therapeutic reasons.