Yes, this isn't really news but it is interesting. Listened to a much more informative TEDTalks about it. I love TED.

Good stuff.

so if i'm reading this right, the stuff doesn't break down in our bodies or at water treatment plants, so birds (and probably other animals) end up drinking the water, so they become resistant to certain flus? If that's the case the it's good, this way it spreads that around and gets rid of the flu.

@The Marionette: No, the flu mutates so that we can longer cure flu with Tamiflu.

"no longer cure"
Edit button!

@Ratty: Off topic, but the speech that E.O. Wilson made for TED made me cry a little. God, I love TED.

@The Marionette: The flu becomes resistant to drug treatment.

This is total garbage. Don't be a sucker.

They merely stated that some very small amount of Tamiflu reaches the environment, and said nothing of how much would actually be required to have a measurable effect on any wildlife or flu strains.

There is no news here whatsoever. Repeat after me: "The poison is in the dose."

Prozac also ends up in the water supply [news.bbc.co.uk] -- so at least the rabid birds will be chill.

@zarex42: Over 80% of tamiflu goes right through the body.

Even if it's a small amount that reaches the water, ANY amount can breed resistant strains. In fact, diluted tamiflu is much more likely to make resistant strains than straight full concentration.

Jerker Fick = best. name. ever!

for a second there I thought we were talking about Dr. Funke's 100% Natural Good Time Family-Band Solution

Just so we're all ok with Big Pharma's drug's all ending up in the water supplies. I for one welcome Big Pharma to our lakes and rivers.

@hi: And I'd like to add: don't get mad when I pee in your pool.

Overuse of antibiotics is going to be the downfall of the human race.

@The Marionette: The more the avian flu is exposed to Tampiflu, the more selection pressure there is for a resistant strain to pop up. That's why MRSA is such a problem - because antibiotics are persistently over-prescribed by doctors.

@Ratty: You're not reading that correctly. 80% is converted to active form in the body, while 20% goes unconverted. But that doesn't matter because both forms are excreted by the body with the unconverted portion becoming active in waste treatment centers. From the article: "Once ingested, virtually all Tamiflu will end up in the environment in the active form..."

As a bonus, now if you can't afford Tamiflu, you can just drink lots of tap water!

Flu resistant super ducks. I think my wildest nightmares may have just come true.

On a side note, can a science-type clarify this for me: It sounds like it's making Tamiflu out to be some kind of invincible substance whereas nothing can get it out of the water, it isn't broken down in our bodies, and then it just sits...baking in the water for ducks to come drink. Does it break down ever? Or is it now some sort of permanent drug pollution problem?

@Murph1908: Not really. A superbug has just as much chance of growing in nature as it does in a crowded environment. It's just it spreads quicker in a crowded environment, and stands a better chance of survival by having available hosts. They have found bugs immune to antibiotics that have never been released/used except in labs while testing them.

@discounteggroll: No, sadly not. Until then, I'll just settle with my homemade Prozac.

Needs more ice cream.

What could possibly go wrong?

@Murph1908: This isn't an antibiotic, though; it's an antiviral.

@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): Superb for calling attendance. "Fick, Jerker!"

@downwithmonstercable: In my nightmare it was a penguin.

Did the makers of this drug know that it doesn't break down?

Wouldn't this stuff have somekind of shelf life or time period in which it would normally deteriorate if not not in a sealed package ?

Better yet how does this stuff interact with all the other medicines and/or chemicals found in the water supply ?

And mutation rather than eradication is a definite ?

@Ratty:

That's completely wrong.

We're talking about an incredible amount of dilution, measurable only with the most sensitive techniques. There will be zero measurable effect.

This is total non-news.

@thesadtomato: Isn't the flu just as likely to mutate to a resistant form in humans as birds? OK I guess introducing it to birds increases the chances (maybe) but I'm sure far more humans are ingesting Tamiflu than ducks.

@Ratty: Okay, Tamiflu works by inhibiting virus interaction with human cells. We don't know if will have a similar inhibitive effect in birds (who'd have to drink tons of water to get any measurable dose anyway), and it's almost a given that Tamiflu isn't going to magically kill the virus on contact in water (because that'd be one incredibly dangerous catalytic medicine).

Thus, it isn't creating a selective process that creates a super-virus. It's not the same as an anti-biotic being in the water.

@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): I once worked at a place that processed research papers, and it never ceased to amaze us that some people were willing to have their crazy names published for posterity. The example stuck in my head right now is Dr. Kwak. I'll have to see if I can find the list we compiled.

@kagekiri: This is where epidemiologists disagree with you very strongly. I'll go with the expert.

@downwithmonstercable: Roche, the makers of Tamiflu, say the shelf life is around 7 years due to the incredible stability of the drug, so it would be safe to assume that the chemical half life is somewhere closer to 15 years, although that merely a semi-educated guess.

@humphrmi "I'm sure far more humans are ingesting Tamiflu than ducks."

Why are you sure? Ducks specifically? How about all downstream creatures and their food chain? If you mean they won't get a theraputic dose, sure, but that's the problem. The ineffective exposure is pressuring them toward resistance.

Flu resistant meaning they cant get it?

I want to be near them.

@zarex42: When it comes to drugs, the poison is always in the dose.

@Ratty: "Diluted tamilflu is more likely to make resistant strains"? On what planet is this true? This is the real world, not homeopathy-land.

Let's see, we dump a metric ton into the NYC water supply over the course of a month (this is just under seven million doses.)

This leaves you with a net concentration of approx. 6.3 x 10^-9, or 0.00000063%. I think humanity will survive.

@downwithmonstercable: There are ways to get these chemicals out of the water during the wastewater treatment process or the drinking water treatment process. They are just so God-awful expensive that municipalities can't afford to update or build new plants. (And EPA doesn't regulate the amounts of these things in the water, so no one is required to remove them.)

There are many commenters here that are correct, the amount of stuff in the water is akin to homeopathy. But for all the reactionary crazies out there, to fix this problem we'd have to pay $65/gal to compensate the municipality to build and maintain a plant that was capable of such. (Obviously I'm exaggerating the price, but the fact remains, you want X you're going to have to pay for it.)

Believe me, I have listened to the angry people when a utility just raises it's rates to cover costs. Drinking water is way underpriced, we all should be paying much more than we do.

@h3llc4t has a slow work day: Me too. On both counts. But EO Wilson has that effect on me. Maybe I'll watch some TED today when i need a break.

@stranger than fiction: T. Bently Wiggly. That was my favorite. That and Dr. Uppadayaya. The second because it's fun to say.

@sirwired: The concern may be perhaps that the animals congregate at the water outlets. So even though your calculations show major dilution, the animals don't distribute randomly across the water. They congregate. As a result, they are more likely to be smacked in the face with pulses of Tamiflu, where they will breed resistance. And yes, diluted Tamiflu is likely to breed resistance if it works by the same mechanisms in birds as it does in humans. This is not unlikely. The analogy to antibiotics is close enough: if the Tamiflu is present, the viruses that will be killed by the Tamiflu (or in this case, prevented from entering the cells) will be prevented, or at least most of them with a low dose. You don't kill anything, you just prevent a few of them from doing their job. The weaker the dose, the fewer you prevent. But while you hold them off, you're letting the ones with mutations in - and those are the ones we're not yet prepared to deal with, because clearly they don't respond to our drugs. And, they may be zoonotic (jump to humans).

See why science is our friend?

@subtlefrog: The dilution numbers I supplied are directly for the plant treatment totals from the NYC sewage system, not the total outflow of the Hudson river, so the numbers I supplied are accurate. The turbulent nature of sewage flows combined with the sludge settling ponds will prevent "pulses" of anything short of a crate of pure nasty dumped right into a manhole just before the plant intake.

In dilutions far, far, below the effective dose, as here (these are anti-virals, not hormones) no bird infected with the flu is going to have their virus load slowed down one whit. In a 1kg bird, if it were made entirely of spiked water, with no filtering or removal by the kidneys or liver, it would have a total dosing of approx. 63 nanograms. This is approx. 5 orders of magnitude below the treatment dose. See why math is our friend?

@meechybee: Hey, so does birth control, so they won't be breeding either. ;)

@sirwired: It has nothing to do with homeopathy. It's just like not taking the entire dose of antibiotics creates resistant strains of bacteria by leaving some alive. With a highly diluted dose, you are only killing the virus most susceptible to the tamiflu, leaving the ones who aren't as affected to reproduce. Having sub-lethal doses in the environment will encourage the mutant strains. And viruses mutate much more frequently than bacteria.

We actually don't know at what minuscule levels the tamiflu might influence the development of the future virus strains out in the wild, but it is definitely enough of a threat to do some research to find out. Though I have no idea what they would do about it anyway. Make people pee in a jar and bury it anytime they are on Tamiflu?

@discounteggroll: In my book, Arrested reference = Instant heart for you! :)

There's no "I" in Teamocil! (At least not where you'd think)