The Greenville News: Chemicals in water impact fish, Clemson research finds

By Liv Osby • STAFF WRITER • April 6, 2008

In the basement of a small brick building on the campus of Clemson University, hybrid striped bass swim in tanks of water dosed with the antidepressant Prozac.

"It's amazing how (pharmaceuticals) are excreted from the body, go to the treatment plants, and in many cases, come out almost untouched," says Stephen J. Klaine, professor of environmental toxicology at Clemson. "And given that many municipalities take their drinking water from surface water, you'd expect these compounds, if they make it through a wastewater treatment plant, will make it through a drinking water plant."

One of Klaine's graduate students, Kristen Gaworecki, is looking at Prozac. She exposed bass to the drug, though at higher levels than those found in surface water, and found the fish had no desire to eat. They also behaved abnormally -- swimming vertically as opposed to horizontally or with their backs out of the water.

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