Pharmacy Daily | Emissions a health issue

WITH every medicine produced inevitably ending up in the global eco-system with potentially hazardous effects, Cochrane has launched a new group focused on sustainable healthcare.

Writing in the BMJ, former British GP, Dr Iona Heath, said the group will have the potential to bring together issues of futility and waste within biomedicine; corruption in the production and governance of biomedical research; exploitation of planetary resources and the resulting climate change; the burgeoning costs of biotechnical healthcare across the globe; and the threat this represents to universal health coverage.

"Modern medicine has been a powerful force for good, and many people owe their lives to that power," she said.

"However, because of humanity's shared reverence for that success, combined with the increasing financial rewards from the industrialisation of healthcare, almost everyone has been slow to recognise that medicine also has great power to harm.

"The carbon footprint of the drug and health technology industries has received remarkably little attention, but the global drug industry alone has been estimated to be 55% more emission intensive than the automotive industry."

Heath noted data from the Chemicals, Health, and Environment Monitoring (CHEM) Trust, with aims to prevent synthetic chemicals from causing long-term damage to wildlife or humans, by ensuring that harmful chemicals are replaced by safer alternatives, found that in 2014, 613 pharmaceuticals had been detected in the environment.

Heath said the new Cochrane group was a recognition of the importance of this concatenation of issues and provides vital support for the increasing number of researchers working (often against fierce opposition) to quantify the harms being caused.

She added the importance of this support and validation could not be underestimated.