NEWS
ENVIRONMENT Mercury mining hazard MARIA BURKE
An Australian researcher is calling for an international effort to address the problem of mercury pollution from artisanal and small-scale gold mining, the largest global source of mercury pollution. The miners risk neurological damage and other health issues from inhaling mercury, while it can also contaminate water and soil, and accumulate in food.
‘Chemists can play a central role in solving these mercury problems,’ argues Justin Chalker, senior lecturer in synthetic chemistry at Flinders University (Chemistry, A European Journal, doi: 10.1002/ chem.201704840). His call comes ahead of the entry into force later in 2018 of the Minamata Convention on Mercury to control the trade, use and emissions of mercury. Parties to the convention have three years to develop and implement a national plan of action.
PHARMACEUTICALS GSK leads superbug charge ANTHONY KING
With 55 R&D projects and six novel clinical candidates, GSK has most antimicrobial medicines in the R&D pipeline, a new survey has found. The Antimicrobial Resistance Benchmark looked at the 30 most active players and ranked GSK and Johnson & Johnson as leaders among large research-based pharmaceutical companies. Mylan leads the generic medicine manufacturers and Entasis tops the biotech group. However, with just 28
compounds in the pipeline to target priority pathogens by drug companies, the findings overall were not good news. ‘That is not enough. We need it to be hundreds,’ says Marijn Verhoef of the Access to Medicine Foundation. The survey ‘just reinforces the view that the cupboard is pretty much bare,’ comments Colin Garner, who leads the charity Antibiotics Research UK.
‘Until governments and pharma come up with an incentivisation package, big pharma will stay out of antibiotic development.’ Among the generics manufacturers, Mylan’s lead was due to an equitable pricing approach and environmental risk-management strategy. It was followed by Cipla, then Fresenius Kabi.
‘In the UK, approximately 70% of antibiotic prescriptions are for generics and so generic companies need to follow best practice procedures just as much, if not more than, proprietary pharmaceutical companies. It is disappointing to read in this report that the level of transparency of generic manufacturers was low,’ comments Garner. While most firms have a
strategy to minimise the impact of their antibiotics discharged to the environment, only GSK was seen to extend its discharge limits to both third-party manufacturers and external
waste-treatment plants. No company currently discloses publicly its levels of antibiotic discharge. Moves to
decouple antibiotics sales and sales incentives were also rated, since this can encourage misuse and overuse. GSK has decoupled all sales incentives for sales staff since 2013. Shionogi has also decoupled its sales force incentives from sale volumes, while Novartis and Pfizer are moving in this direction. ‘These are impressive results,’ says Verhoef, ‘given that the usual business model is the more I sell the more profitable I am.’
Nine of the 19 companies
examined carried out antimicrobial resistance surveillance. Access to Johnson & Johnson’s breakthrough
Chalker wants researchers, funding
agencies and journal editors to consider how they might marshal their resources and expertise to help with the development of mercury-free technology and strategies. Small-scale gold mining involves using
mercury to extract gold from ore as an amalgam. The amalgam is usually isolated by hand and then heated—often with a torch or over a stove—to distil the mercury and isolate the gold. Mercury releases from tailings (residues) and vaporised mercury reach more than 1000t/year, accounting for 37% of global mercury emissions. Between 10 and 19m people use mercury to mine for gold in more than 70 countries, and it is on the rise particularly in poor and remote areas of Asia, Africa and South America. Chemistry is key to developing new
mercury-free strategies for mining, tailings processing, and remediating damaged environments, Chalker says. Introducing portable and low-cost mercury sensors,
inexpensive and scalable remediation technologies, novel methods to prevent mercury uptake in fish and food crops, and efficient and easy-to-use mercury-free mining techniques are all ways chemists can help. But new technologies and techniques must be cheap and adaptable to remote areas.
Chalker’s own group, for example, has
created a polymer made from waste canola oil and sulfur – a low-cost byproduct from petroleum production – that can extract mercury from polluted soil, water and air. Separately, researchers have discovered that permafrost soils in Alaska are the largest reservoir of mercury on Earth, storing nearly twice as much as all other soils, the ocean and the atmosphere combined (Geophys. Res. Lett., doi: 10.1002/2017GL075571). The researchers say their discovery is a game-changer, as they’ve quantified a pool of mercury not previously recorded.
medicine for multidrug-resistant TB is recognised as tightly controlled through national TB programmes. Pfizer performs well in stewardship measures, while Sanofi is stronger in R&D. Novartis delivers a consistently solid performance in most areas, according to the benchmark report.
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