Pharmaceuticals as potential pollutants of aqueous environment

The present article is a brief review of the problems arising in connection with environmental pollution by medicines. Production and consumption of drugs and biologically active additives are steadily increasing, and more and more of them get into the external environment. Despite insignificant concentrations, pharmacologically active substances, excipients, and their degradation products can have a strong impact on living organisms. First of all, water bodies are subject to pollution. The publication considers issues related to environmental pollution by such medicines as paracetamol and diclofenac. One of the directions of solving the problem of drug pollution is to increase the level of control over the state of natural objects, which in turn, can be achieved by expanding the range of chemical and physicochemical methods and techniques that allow specialists to detect and identify organic xenobiotics.