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Sewage pollution of rivers leads to the development of hermaphroditism in fish
Last reviewed: 30.06.2025
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Due to wastewater discharged into rivers, a large proportion of fish populations have both male and female sexual characteristics, Elena Dusi reports in an article published in the newspaper La Repubblica.
"Hormones, cocaine, antibiotics: after they are released from the human body and enter river waters, they resume their action in the bodies of fish. For example, crucian carp in the French section of the Dora Riparia River, having been soaked in contraceptives, lost their sexual identity," the publication writes.
"In the valley of the village of Vertolee, where the Sanofi plant is located, 60% of the fish population are hermaphrodites. Above the location of the pharmaceutical plant, as French scientists have established, only 5% of the fish have both male and female sexual characteristics," the author of the article writes.
"Cocaine catabolites, which enter the river with wastewater, have been found in fish that live in the Po River. According to a study conducted in 2005, 4 kg of cocaine catabolites - in other words, molecules that are only slightly different from the real drug, but have undergone changes during their passage through the human body - enter Italy's largest river every day," the author of the article writes.
"A similar study was conducted in the Potomac River at the direction of the White House Office of National Drug Control, while the studies in the Po River were expanded to include amphetamine, ecstasy, morphine, heroin and cannabis. Both the Potomac and the Po had much higher levels of drugs than predicted based on police data or drug users," notes Elena Dusi.
"And it is not even fish accustomed to cocaine that pose a threat to humans. In India, in the area of a pharmaceutical plant, a large number of bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics were discovered. Microorganisms that do not die under the influence of such drugs multiply and form colonies that are resistant to the effects. And sooner or later, they end up in the human body," the author of the article writes.
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