Traces of pharmaceuticals have been detected in dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico. The drugs include fentanyl, muscle relaxants, and sedatives. It is thought that these substances made their way into the dolphins’ bodies after eating fish and shrimp.
Humans consume various fish and shrimp as well, so this discovery could pose a risk to human health. In a new study, a team of researchers took blubber tissue samples from a total of 89 dolphins from around the Gulf of Mexico and Mississippi Sound. Six of these dolphins had been found dead.
They discovered that 30 of the dolphins contained some form of pharmaceutical in their systems, while 18 of the dolphins had fentanyl in their bodies. Fentanyl was also identified in all six of the dead dolphins.
“Since dolphins do not usually drink water, contaminants in the water are often consumed through prey, although there is a possibility of absorption through skin or inhalation. There are many potential sources of pharmaceuticals in the ocean, including untreated wastewater,” said Dara Orbach, a co-author of the study and an assistant professor of marine biology at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine. It is an effective painkiller, but it is associated with a large risk of overdose.
In 2022, synthetic opioids, particularly fentanyl, were involved in 68 percent of all overdose deaths across the United States.
Other substances detected in the dolphins were carisoprodol, a skeletal muscle relaxant, and meprobamate, an anxiety medication.
“The amount of fentanyl we detected in the dolphins was very small, although we do not know how much would be deadly,” said Orbach.
“Most pharmaceuticals were found in the dolphins in regions of extensive human-caused stressors like dredging, chemical pollution, vessel traffic, and noise. Stressors can have cumulative effects and compromise dolphin immune response and survival.”
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The discovery of drugs in the dolphins’ bodies is worrisome because they serve as indicators of the general health of the ecosystem.
Their blubber is rich with lipids and stores contaminants that can be sampled in a way that is not too invasive for them.
Within a year of the largest liquid fentanyl drug bust in U.S. history, the researchers found a dead dolphin in Baffin Bay in South Texas.
The Mississippi dolphins made up 40 percent of their overall pharmaceutical detections, indicating that this has been an ongoing problem in the marine environment.
More research is needed to determine the extent of the impact that pharmaceutical contamination has on marine life. If dolphins are absorbing pharmaceuticals through their diet of seafood, there’s a possibility we might be, too.
The study was published in Science.
