
Mussels test positive for opioids in Seattle's Puget Sound - lunchbreak
https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-us-canada-44256765
======
mirimir
This is pure clickbait. Sure, opioids are detectable in mussels from Puget
Sound. That reflects the sad fact that Puget Sound is horribly polluted. I
suspect that levels of some pollutants are high enough to damage human and
ecosystem health. Organomercury compounds, for example. But what gets the
focus is opioids. Because it's good clickbait.

Edit: Following pesfandiar's link about caffeine pollution in the Pacific
Northwest, I found this about Puget Sound:[0]

> Of all the flavors trickling downstream, artificial vanilla dominates the
> sound, Keil said. For instance, the team found an average of about six
> milligrams of artificial vanilla per liter of water sampled.

Yes, 6 mg/L in water! That's not trace contamination. But "Puget Sound is
vanilla flavored!" isn't so scarey, I guess.

0)
[https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/11/091112-drin...](https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/11/091112-drinking-
water-cocaine.html)

~~~
chiefalchemist
We know there's pollution. However, we do not expect it to be a prescription
drug. This isn't a factory dumping lead or some other chemical. This is enough
individuals pissing oxy / opiods that it shows up "down stream."

This isn't click bait silly. This is another wake up call. So wake up.

~~~
oxide
I wouldn't be shocked if prescription drugs were detected in every body of
water that is being used for human waste.

Wake up to what, exactly?

~~~
mirimir
Also recreational drugs.

> In a new [~2009] review study, Castiglioni and colleague Ettore Zuccato
> found that illegal drugs have become "widespread" in surface water in some
> of Europe's populated areas.

> Likewise, in 2005, Zuccato found that a daily influx of cocaine travels down
> the Po River, Italy's longest river.

[https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/11/091112-drin...](https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/11/091112-drinking-
water-cocaine_2.html)

~~~
Fnoord
The same is true for sewer water in Dutch cities (Amsterdam, Utrecht,
Eindhoven, etc). Scientists can trace which drugs are popular where.

EDIT quickly found some sources (in Dutch) [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]. Some are
double, but its been tested for a while. Also, at least [3] and [5] are based
on European investigation so English source should be available too.

[1] [https://www.kwrwater.nl/projecten/drugs-in-het-
riool/](https://www.kwrwater.nl/projecten/drugs-in-het-riool/)

[2] [https://nos.nl/artikel/2148110-rioolonderzoek-meer-
cocaine-g...](https://nos.nl/artikel/2148110-rioolonderzoek-meer-cocaine-
gesnoven-in-utrecht-en-eindhoven.html)

[3]
[http://www.omroepbrabant.nl/?news/213383832/Waterschap+gaat+...](http://www.omroepbrabant.nl/?news/213383832/Waterschap+gaat+speed-+en+xtc-
afval+in+riool+onderzoeken.aspx)

[4] [https://www.parool.nl/amsterdam/meeste-cocaine-in-
amsterdams...](https://www.parool.nl/amsterdam/meeste-cocaine-in-amsterdams-
rioolwater~a4578463/)

[5] [https://www.ed.nl/eindhoven/cocaeniuml-ne-en-amfetamine-
rest...](https://www.ed.nl/eindhoven/cocaeniuml-ne-en-amfetamine-resten-in-
rioolwater-blijkt-uit-europees-onderzoek~a7b7cbea/)

------
dluan
I live on the water in West Seattle close to a park, and by the shore we found
some seaweed that we wanted to harvest and maybe, potentially eat.

I got curious about where in the sound is safe to eat things from. Pretty much
the entire sound is polluted and a hazard.

[https://fortress.wa.gov/doh/eh/maps/biotoxin/biotoxin.html](https://fortress.wa.gov/doh/eh/maps/biotoxin/biotoxin.html)

~~~
sdrothrock
My Japanese anthropology professor once told us a story about when he and his
wife went to Japan for a research trip with his wife sometime in the 70s or
80s.

In Japan, when you move into a new apartment, it's customary to give a gift to
your neighbors. Being a new professor, he and his wallet welcomed any chance
to save a little money. When he and his wife were walking along a beach in the
Tokyo Bay area, they noticed a ton of shellfish.

Thinking this would be a great gift and a budget dinner, they got some
buckets, went back, and started pulling up shellfish for dinner and for their
neighbors as a present.

The Tokyo Bay was much more polluted in that era (not that I know whether it
would be safe to do this now), so when everyone ate those shellfish,
apparently everyone got terribly sick.

So yeah, I'd be super leery of edible things in those kinds of areas in
general. :(

~~~
xevb3k
Pollution in Japan caused a number of issues in the 60s, things were probably
starting to get better in the 70s when their environmental agency was formed,
but no doubt issues remained.

This maybe of interest as a reference:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Big_Pollution_Diseases_...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Big_Pollution_Diseases_of_Japan)

------
thfuran
>high enough oxycodone levels for the shellfish to test positive

That doesn't really tell me anything. Are they testing by taste or by some
fancy test that can detect down to 1 ppq?

~~~
fanzhang
Just to do the Fermi problem math for fun, how much heroin is needed to reach
detectability in Puget Sound?

Assume 1 ppq detection rates (like many spectroscopic methods claim to do).

Puget sound is 110 km^3 or 1.10E14 liters of water. That's 6.05E15 moles of
water. At one ppq (1E15), you need 6.05 moles of heroin. This comes out to
about 2.2 kilograms.

Now in terms of doses, that's a _lot_ of doses. But that's not a lot if a drug
runner could have just tossed a single brick in to reach that concentration
(or emptied a single car boot in haste).

~~~
cgb223
But this is coming from human waste, how much of a filter does the human body
act on heroin?

If a person puts a gram of 100% pure heroin (another good question might be
how purity affects the measurements) in to their body, how much will come out
the other end?

Also, from a chemistry perspective, how does water bring a solvent affect
opioid molecules existing? Would the water or various things in the water
break down the molecules into other non detectable molecules?

~~~
fanzhang
True. So if we presume all the opoids are from human bodily waste, we would
need divide by 10% (the amount excreted out):
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxycodone#Metabolism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxycodone#Metabolism)

Probably the molecule does break up with a certain half life, either due to
sun, or other animals metabolising it, etc. Then that 2.2 kg brick needs to be
replaced once every two half-lives.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2991390/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2991390/)
Gives really hand-wavy half-life of many drugs in the environment as about 500
days, so the brick needs to be replaced every 1000 days.

Also 1 ppq is the lower bound. I think 1 ppt is quite reasonable for many
methods though, so that can multiply the limit by 1000x.

All the factors above can increase the threshold amount of opoids, but here
are some factors that can decrease it substantially:

There are people who dump unused drugs in, so that needs no attenuation
factor.

Also, mussels are filter feeders, and oxycodone might accumulate in them
substantially more (like 1000x+) than the background.

Finally, where they collected the mussels is probably correlated with sewage
drains due to ease of human access, so the effective "volume of distribution"
can be way less than the 110 km^3.

All that is to say, the real statistics are in the overdose calls for opoids.
The headline is still an interesting cocktail-party line, but probably should
be taken as a statement just by itself.

------
edf13
Key para...

"What we eat and what we excrete goes into the Puget Sound," Jennifer
Lanksbury, a biologist at the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, told
CBS News affiliate KIRO.

...so enough crap going into the water from the local population to be picked
up in the Mussel samples... Crazy!

~~~
Maybestring
Waste water treatment doesn't remove drugs, so they make it out into the
water, and the filter feeders pick it up.

~~~
49bc
I’m surprised the chemicals don’t quickly break down in the salty sea water.
Do ocean environments affect half-life of pharmaceuticals differently?

~~~
whistlerbrk
Water shields double bonds from UV light preventing them from breaking down.
For examples of this look no further than PCBs (polychorinated biphenyls, not
circuit boards)

------
josefdlange
As a member of the community to whom this particular mussel economy is very
important, this is disconcerting. At the same time, it's worth mentioning that
the mussels in question were cultivated out here in cleaner waters and then
_transported_ to urban shorelines.

The results are a possible window into what's to come if we don't curb our
rate of pollution in the region, but not representative of what's currently in
the mussels that get to your plate.

------
gdubs
I’ve been studying / beginning to practice permaculture for a little while now
and one thing that is often discussed is the subject of human waste.

When you take food out of the ground and consume it, you’ve removed some
fertility from the ground. Either you have animals put it back in as manure,
or you use some kind of synthetic fertilizer.

When the food goes through your body, you’re also generating manure. But
typically we ship it off to some central location where it becomes a massive
collection of toxic waste.

The permaculture argument is that if we kept as much of that waste on site as
possible, we’d be recycling nutrients rather than not only wasting them, but
creating toxic hazards due to the size of the collections.

On a small scale, think of how fertile the ground over a septic field is —
wildflowers and grass will grow like crazy.

The more, er, devoted will go as far as installing composting toilets.

The reason I think this is relevant is that when the waste stays local, you’re
much more conscious about what’s in it. If you have a septic system, you
really don’t want pills going into it — especially if you also have well
water. When it’s being flushed to some unknown location it’s easy to not give
it a second thought.

------
konceptz
Does this 100% mean that humans are consuming high amounts of these opioids or
could there be another explanation? Like someone dumped a boat of pills into
the sound.

~~~
__jal
Depends on how many mussels they're eating...

More seriously, unless you're looking for an indirect measure of consumption,
does it matter? Human action either way, and it is there either way.

------
tejtm
on the up side at least it may make them as happy as clams[1] reproducing per
the 1998 Ignobles[2]

[1]
[https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Prozac+works+on+clams+and+mus...](https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Prozac+works+on+clams+and+mussels.-a020212410)

[2]
[https://www.improbable.com/ig/winners/#ig1998](https://www.improbable.com/ig/winners/#ig1998)

------
pesfandiar
What's interesting is that opiods are probably not Seattle's most prominent
poison of choice with traces in Puget Sound:
[https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/07/120730-caff...](https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/07/120730-caffeinated-
seas-pacific-northwest-caffeine-coffee-science/)

------
mywittyname
Is oxycodone altered in anyway by human consumption or do we excrete the same
substance that is put into our veins?

I don't know enough about pharmacology, but I would think that this is more
indicative of the dumping of unused opioids than use of.

~~~
gramstrong
_When humans ingest opioids like oxycodone, they ultimately end up excreting
traces of the drugs into the toilet. Those chemicals then end up in
wastewater. And while many contaminants are filtered out of wastewater before
it 's released into the oceans, wastewater management systems can't entirely
filter out drugs. Thus, opioids, antidepressants, the common chemotherapy drug
Melphalan -- the mussels tested positive for all of them._

Source: [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mussels-test-positive-for-
opioi...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mussels-test-positive-for-opioids-
seattle-puget-sound/)

------
mmaunder
Could also mean people are throwing them down the drain. Seems that standard
issue for post op pain prescription here in PNW is 20 oxy. I don't know anyone
who has taken more than a few. 20 is a lot.

~~~
freeflight
> I don't know anyone who has taken more than a few.

You don't need to know people who "take more than a few" for them to actually
exist. At this point, the opiate problem in the US is pretty much an
established fact and most certainly does not boil down to people just washing
their spares down the drain.

~~~
patmorgan23
I think the above commenter was trying to emphasize how much oxy that is
rather than trying to deny the opiad crisis.

------
peter303
Not too long ago sex hormones were detectable in seawater. Apparently some
women excrete of their birth control medications. Human drug use has far
reaching side effects.

------
Bud
Another worthless, alarmist, innumerate article. Without data on the levels of
opioids found, this article is _worthless_ ; it literally has no value, so to
speak.

------
johnmorrow
What a waste of drugs on an animal that doesn’t even have a central nervous
system

------
dekhn
TL;DR filter feeders concentrate chemicals, and we have very sensitive
equipment.

Clickbait kid science.

------
rbanffy
I knew it! They always seemed way too happy and peaceful.

------
pvaldes
Carrying drugs inside their body is a common moule bussiness, yup. Hence their
name.

------
spsrich
I wonder if a mussel can get high

------
axedwool
The opioid crisis is out of control. Even mussels are ODing.

------
aviv
As if we needed more reasons to not eat seafood. Oceans are too contaminated,
especially that part of the world.

------
Iwan-Zotow
Microsofties or Amazones?

~~~
reaperducer
Expedians.

------
qop
They're musseling into the Seattle opioid industry?

------
txsh
As someone who has had frequent kidney stones, I have found that many
painkiller prescriptions are unnecessary. Kidney stones are more painful than
childbirth and I’ve been hospitalized for then before. But prescription
painkillers rarely get rid of the pain.

People seem to be reluctant to mix medications for fear of drug interactions.
They want a strong dose of one substance.

But nothing has worked for me better than mixing acetaminophen with ibuprofen
or with naproxen. All are cheap, available over the counter, and have fewer
side effects than prescription pain killers.

I also find that, after the initial pain subsides, I can more quickly reduce
the dosage of these drugs than I could with prescription painkillers.

By all means, use oxy if you need it. But please consider trying alternatives
first so you can avoid addiction.

~~~
xapata
> mixing acetaminophen with ibuprofen

It's a well-documented (in scientific literature) phenomenon that the mix of a
standard dose of both acetaminophen and ibuprofen provides the same or better
pain relief as opioids. This is what medical schools currently teach. You can
read Maxigesic sales forecasts if you'd like a glowing review.

> use [OxyContin] if you need it

As far as I know, no one "needs" it (for pain relief, unless already
addicted). By suggesting so, you're creating a placebo effect.

> [@Kenji] it depends on the person

Responding to a dead sibling comment: There are some differences observed for
anesthetic response. The "red head rule" is interesting and suggests that
different people might have different responses to various drugs. However, I'm
not aware of any differentiation known for acetaminophen or ibuprofen
response.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1362956/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1362956/)

~~~
refurb
_mixing acetaminophen with ibuprofen It 's a well-documented (in scientific
literature) phenomenon that the mix of a standard dose of both acetaminophen
and ibuprofen provides the same or better pain relief as opioids_

If you had said _some_ types of pain, I would agree, but your statement as-is
is not accurate.

If just had a leg amputated or some other major surgery, I doubt you'd be ok
with just Tylenol and ibuprofen.

The only info could find concluded it better for dental pain.

~~~
xapata
True. Interestingly, from what I've read, people often rate dental pain worse
than other kinds when asked "How much pain are you in, from 1 to 10?" Nasty
toothaches and kidney stones are just about the worst pain someone can
experience. Maybe the data on losing limbs isn't good because the question
gets asked at the wrong time.

Also, a large portion of the opioids prescribed are for dental pain. At least
historically.

