There has been spate of allegations about sabotage for horses coming positive at Mumbai. Nobody has bothered to analyze the reason why a horse can test positive for a banned substance. Contamination and environmental pollution have a bearing on the horses coming positive. Unfortunately the authorities don’t go beyond the obvious which has resulted in accusations of sabotage.

Unfortunately in the battle to win the votes, allegations of sabotage and conspiracy have been flying freely without bothering about the damage it is causing to the sport. If a non race goer were to believe that racing is all about doping, sabotage and conspiracy, he may not been entirely wrong because that is the image that we are trying to portray to the public.

Cooji Katrak may or may not be guilty of sabotage but the evidence of taped conversation highlights the fact that his bitter rivalry between him and his former friend Pesi Shroff and mentor possibly might have inspired him to take advantage of the situation. With Pesi Shroff’s horses repeatedly coming positive, the trainer has been at a loss to find out what is going wrong. He has high surveillance system and trusted staff. Yet something is going wrong somewhere. The trainer is under intense scrutiny by the authorities and he is the most tested trainer at Mumbai because of the controversy surrounding him due to his criminal complaint. His horses are also tested more than any trainer because his horses keep winning major races.

Perhaps Pesi would be doing himself a great service if he does not simply go by the sabotage theory and explore scientifically what could be going wrong. To make matters worse, one of his owners even went to the extent of alleging sabotage when Maisha tested positive for an anti-depressant. The owner even audaciously said his trainer is being targeted because of the politics of the club without supporting evidence. Such a statement coming from one of the most successful stock brokers surely is disturbing to say the least. He has obviously made a political statement to support the group he wishes to identify with.

Be that as it may, the purpose of this article is to highlight the environmental contaminants that have a bearing on horses coming positive for drugs that the trainer may not be using. The drug that Maisha came positive was for a depressant and there is only one instance of a trainer in Canada having his horse testing positive for this drug where the trainer said that river water contamination was responsible for the presence of the drug. The trainer was suspended for vicarious responsibility though he pleaded that the river close to his stables had contaminants. The authorities did test the water and since it came negative in that instance, the trainer was suspended for a considerable period of time for vicarious responsibility. This story is elsewhere published in the Public Pulse forum. Unfortunately, for the trainer the water tested at that particular point of time did not show any presence of the drug though it is possible that the presence of the banned drug in the river water was not completely ruled out.

There is an interesting piece published by Harvard Health Publications called Drugs in Water. I am reproducing the article for the enlightenment of race goers as well as racing authorities for a better perspective about how urine samples of horses are returning positives for human drugs like Attenol and others. Though the study I am referring to was done with regard to the effects water contaminants had on aquatic life, it gives an interesting perspective about the real threat of contaminants affecting horses as well as they are exposed to so many of these medications as they live in an unhealthy environment, in claustrophobic stables. Read on…

DRUGS IN WATER

Pharmaceutical pollution doesn't seem to be harming humans yet, but disturbing clues from aquatic life suggest now is the time for preventive action.

Although maybe not as tasty as an ice-cold gulp from a mountain spring, the water that flows through most American kitchen faucets is generally clean, clear, and safe. Approximately 170,000 public water systems are monitored for nearly 80 harmful substances. The prohibited nasties include bacteria, viruses, pesticides, petroleum products, strong acids, and some metals.
But water quality experts and environmental advocates are increasingly concerned about another kind of water pollution: chemicals from prescription drugs and over-the-counter medications that get into lakes, rivers, and streams. Water also gets contaminated by perfume, cologne, skin lotions, and sunscreens that wash off people's skin.

At this point, there's really no evidence of pharmaceutical and personal care products in the water harming people, but studies are showing adverse effects on aquatic life.

Drug take-back programs, which allow people to drop off their unused medications at central locations, serve two purposes. They keep unused drugs out of the water and prevent diversion of drugs, mainly the opioid painkillers, for recreation and illegal purposes.

Another step in the right direction is new guidelines from the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that discourage hospitals and nursing homes from flushing unused drugs down the drain or toilet. Guidelines for individuals also discourage flushing most, but not all, unused drugs. The question now is whether these and other efforts will be enough to keep the chemicals out of the water at a time when the use of pharmaceuticals and personal care products continues to grow at a rapid rate.

The sources

Reliable figures are hard to come by, but it's a safe assumption that we, as consumers, are responsible for a hefty percentage of the pharmaceutical and personal care products that wind up in lakes, rivers, and streams. The typical American medicine cabinet is full of unused and expired drugs, only a fraction of which get disposed of properly. Data collected from a medication collection program in California in 2007 suggest that about half of all medications — both prescription and over-the-counter — are discarded. That's probably a high-end estimate, but even if the real proportion is lower, there's a lot of unused medication that can potentially get into the water.

Chemicals also get into the water from the drugs we use. Our bodies metabolize only a fraction of most drugs we swallow. Most of the remainder is excreted in urine or feces (some is sweated out) and therefore gets into wastewater. An increasing number of medications are applied as creams or lotions, and the unabsorbed portions of those medications can contribute to the pollution problem when they get washed off. It's been calculated, for example, that one man's use of testosterone cream can wind up putting as much of the hormone into the water as the natural excretions from 300 men.

How bad is the problem?

A study conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey in 1999 and 2000 found measurable amounts of one or more medications in 80% of the water samples drawn from a network of 139 streams in 30 states. The drugs identified included a witches' brew of antibiotics, antidepressants, blood thinners, heart medications (ACE inhibitors, calcium-channel blockers, digoxin), hormones (estrogen, progesterone, testosterone), and painkillers. Scores of studies have been done since. Other drugs that have been found include caffeine (which, of course, comes from many other sources besides medications); carbamazepine, an antiseizure drug; fibrates, which improve cholesterol levels; and some fragrance chemicals (galaxolide and tonalide).

Sewage treatment plants are not currently designed to remove pharmaceuticals from water. Nor are the facilities that treat water to make it drinkable. Yet a certain amount of pharmaceutical contamination is removed when water gets treated for other purposes. For example, some research shows that conventional treatment methods result in a 90% decrease in the amount of ibuprofen and naproxen in the water discharged from sewage treatment plants. On the other hand, treatment doesn't seem to have much effect on the levels of drugs such as carbamazepine and diclofenac (a pain reliever).

Some aspects of sewage treatment may remove pharmaceuticals from the water, but as a result, concentrations in sludge increase. Some of that sludge is used as fertilizer, so the pharmaceuticals are getting into the environment in another way.

Drinking-water treatment may also get rid of some pharmaceutical contamination. Chlorine is used to kill bacteria and other pathogens, but it also seems to degrade or remove acetaminophen, codeine, and the antibiotic sulfathiazole. A 2007 study of one drinking-water plant found that conventional treatment methods reduced the concentrations of several important medications (acetaminophen, carbamazepine) by 75%.

Still, there's really not much question that some pharmaceutical pollution persists and does wind up in the water we drink. In 2008, the Associated Press published a series of investigative articles about pharmaceutical contamination in drinking water. The journalists uncovered test results that showed the water supplies for 24 major metropolitan areas had detectable levels of pharmaceuticals. Scientists from the Southern Nevada Water Authority and other organizations reported results in 2010 from a study analyzing drinking water from 19 treatment plants. Their tests found antidepressants, antipsychotics, antibiotics, beta blockers, and tranquilizers, although only in trace amounts and far below levels thought to have an effect on humans.
It's possible that there's a cumulative effect on people from even tiny amounts of these and other pharmaceuticals in drinking water, but this hasn't been proven. And perhaps vulnerable populations (pregnant women, people with disabilities) are affected, although that's also unproven.

Effects on fish and wildlife

In contrast to the uncertainty about human health effects, there's quite a bit of evidence for pharmaceuticals in the water affecting aquatic life, particularly fish. Numerous studies have shown that estrogen and chemicals that behave like it have a feminizing effect on male fish and can alter female-to-male ratios. Sources of estrogen include birth control pills and postmenopausal hormone treatments, as well as the estrogen that women produce naturally and excrete. Intersex fish — creatures with both male and female sex characteristics — have been found in heavily polluted sections of the Potomac River. Studies of fish upstream and downstream of wastewater treatment plants have found more female and intersex fish downstream from the plants, presumably because of the higher estrogen levels in the downstream water. Other research has uncovered popular antidepressant medications concentrated in the brain tissue of fish downstream from wastewater treatment plants.

Health care institutions are another source of pharmaceutical water pollution. Hospitals are probably less of a problem than nursing homes because they typically have on-site pharmacies with arrangements in place to return unused drugs to manufacturers for credit or disposal. Nursing homes, though, have often been guilty of flushing medications down the toilet or drain after a patient dies or is transferred to another facility. Typically, they don't have the same kind of return arrangements as hospitals. And the rules for getting rid of opioid painkillers, which make disposal down the drain an acceptable option, have inadvertently encouraged some nursing homes to dispose of all their leftover medications that way.

Drug manufacturing also results in some pharmaceutical pollution, although some factories are bigger problem than others. For example, a U.S. Geological Survey study found contamination levels downstream from two drug manufacturing plants in New York State that were 10 to 1,000 times higher than those at comparable facilities around the country.

Agriculture is another major source. The two trillion pounds of animal waste generated by large-scale poultry and livestock operations in this country is laced with hormones and antibiotics fed to animals to make them grow faster and to keep them from getting sick. Inevitably, some of those hormones and antibiotics leach into groundwater or get into waterways.