‘Meth-Addicted Fish’ And Many Other Animals’ Physiology Are Changing Due To Over-Exposure To Drugs, And We’re Eating It

Last year, The WinePress detailed how scientists in Japan were able to convert male catfish and sturgeon into egg-laying females by simply submerging them in water with soybean protein isolates. The experiments were touted as a potentially new way of increasing caviar supply at more affordable prices.

These studies clearly demonstrated the effects of isolated chemicals, additives, and pharmaceuticals can have on animals. The same is no different out of captivity. In 2016, National Geographic published a piece titled, “Why Are These Male Fish Growing Eggs?,” and asked the question: “Fish in wildlife refuges are feminized, probably by hormone-skewing pollution. What does this portend for the health of all creatures—and people?” The outlet wrote:

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Sixty miles south of Montreal, near the U.S.-Canada border, Missisquoi National Wildlife Refuge is one of the most productive and pristine wetland ecosystems in the Northeast. Yet even here, scientists have found an abundance of fish with bizarre abnormalities that suggest exposure to hormone-disrupting water pollution.

Scientists from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Geological Survey studied fish in 19 national wildlife refuges in the U.S. Northeast, including Missisquoi. Their conclusion: An astonishing 60 to 100 percent of all the male smallmouth bass they examined had female egg cells growing in their testes.

Scientists call this condition intersex, and while its exact causes are unknown, it’s been linked to manmade, environmental chemicals that mimic or block sex hormones.

Over the past decade, feminized male fish have been discovered in 37 species in lakes and rivers throughout North America, Europe, and other parts of the world. Experts say the new discovery in protected wildlife refuges is worrisome because it suggests that pollution may be even more pervasive than previously thought.

“There are no truly untouched areas. I think the take away here is that everything we do, everything we use or put on the land, ends up in the water at some point,” says Luke Iwanowicz, a U.S. Geological Survey fish researcher based in West Virginia who led the wildlife refuge study.

“When fish are getting intersex, it’s probably a good indication that something is wrong in the environment,” says Vicki Blazer, a researcher at the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Fish Health Research Laboratory in West Virginia. 

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Meanwhile, megacorporations such as Tyson are pouring millions of pounds of toxins and pollutants into the water supply. SEE: Study Alleges Tyson Dumped Over 370 Million Pounds Of Pollutants Into America’s Waterways

Now, more recent studies have shone a new light as to just how bad and pervasive this issue of chemical and pharmaceutical contamination in the wild has had on our food and water supply, leading to so-called ‘meth-addicted fish, aggro starlings, and caffeinated minnows.’ The Guardian provided more details in a new report published last week:

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From brown trout becoming “addicted” to methamphetamine to European perch losing their fear of predators due to depression medication, scientists warn that modern pharmaceutical and illegal drug pollution is becoming a growing threat to wildlife.

Drug exposure is causing significant, unexpected changes to some animals’ behaviour and anatomy. Female starlings dosed with antidepressants such as Prozac at concentrations found in sewage waterways become less attractive to potential mates, with male birds behaving more aggressively and singing less to entice them than undosed counterparts.

The contraceptive pill has caused sex reversal in some fish populations – leading to a collapse in numbers and local extinction events as male fish reverted to female organs. Scientists have said that modern pharmaceutical waste is having significant consequences for wildlife exposed to discharges in their ecosystems, and warned it could have unintended consequences for humans.

Michael Bertram, an assistant professor at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, said: “Active pharmaceutical ingredients are found in waterways all around the globe, including in organisms that we might eat.”

He said evidence of the problem had grown over recent decades, and it was a global issue for biodiversity that deserved more attention.

In a paper published on Wednesday in the journal Nature Sustainability, researchers said the pharmaceutical industry must urgently reform the design of drugs to make them greener.

There are a few pathways for these chemicals to enter the environment. If there is inadequate treatment of pharmaceuticals that are being released during drug production, that’s one way.

Another is during use. When a human takes a pill, not all of that drug is broken down inside our bodies and so through our excrement, the effluent is released directly into the environment.

Bertram, one of the paper’s authors, said.

Drugs such as caffeine, anti-anxiety medications, antidepressants and antipsychotics were all entering ecosystems, Bertram said, as were illegal drugs such as cocaine and methamphetamine.

Bertram pointed to the notable example of diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory drug routinely given to cattle in south Asia at the time, that caused India’s vulture population to fall by more than 97% between 1992 and 2007. The country subsequently had a surge in rabies cases from dogs that were feeding on the cattle carcasses that were no longer being eaten by the birds.

Other examples include fathead minnows that remained anxious after they were exposed to low levels of caffeine, and antibiotic pollution that has an effect on microbes.

Alarmingly, it is the very same characteristic of pharmaceuticals that makes them effective in human and animal patients that also makes them particularly hazardous environmental pollutants: drugs are specifically designed to have biological effects at low doses.

A recent study that measured 61 different drugs from 104 countries from rivers in 1,052 locations found 43.5% of the sites had traces of at least one drug that were above safe levels for ecological health.

The researchers said active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) pollution was occurring against a backdrop of other pressures on biodiversity, including the climate crisis, habitat destruction and overconsumption.

They said the lifecycle of drug production could be reformed to curb their spillover on ecosystems, and pharmacists, physicians, nurses and vets should be trained in the potential environmental impact of medicines. They added that drugs could be designed to break down more easily after use and said wastewater treatment should be expanded to prevent API pollution entering the environment.

“Appreciating that patient access to pharmaceuticals will remain vital into the future, we urge drug designers and manufacturers, scientists and policymakers to recognise the growing environmental threat posed by APIs and to urgently prioritise the sustainable molecular design of greener drugs to prevent further environmental harm,” the paper said.

“Greener drugs reduce the potential for pollution throughout the entire cycle,” said Gorka Orive, a scientist and professor of pharmacy based at the University of the Basque Country, and an author of the study.

“Drugs must be designed to not only be effective and safe, but also to have a reduced potential risk to wildlife and human health when present in the environment,” he said..”

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AUTHOR COMMENTARY

The only “greener” drugs are the ones that God has created to be used for as medicine. Psalm 104:14 says: He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth;” and Ezekiel 47:12 references a future time of “the leaf thereof for medicine.” Remember: the Greek word for ‘witchcraft’ and ‘sorcery’ is “Pharmakeia.”

What has been allowed to happen to the environment and animals, and especially our food and water supply, is just a travesty and infuriating to experience.

Proverbs 11:17 The merciful man doeth good to his own soul: but he that is cruel troubleth his own flesh.

Proverbs 23:1 When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is before thee: [2] And put a knife to thy throat, if thou be a man given to appetite. [3] Be not desirous of his dainties: for they are deceitful meat.

If you needed any further proof as to why people are so sick so often, have all kinds of abnormalities, disabilities and other issues, and are more effeminate, absent-minded, angry, and confused – well, here’s a big reason for it. It’s in the food and water and it’s causing people and children to have all sorts of problems.

This is the type of stuff that churches and pastors behind the pulpit refuse to talk about.

Revelation 11:18 And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.

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[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).

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