Dataset Information

Toxicity of diclofenac to Gyps vultures.

ABSTRACT: Three endemic vulture species Gyps bengalensis, Gyps indicus and Gyps tenuirostris are critically endangered following dramatic declines in South Asia resulting from exposure to diclofenac, a veterinary drug present in the livestock carcasses that they scavenge. Diclofenac is widely used globally and could present a risk to Gyps species from other regions. In this study, we test the toxicity of diclofenac to a Eurasian (Gyps fulvus) and an African (Gyps africanus) species, neither of which is threatened. A dose of 0.8 mg kg(-1) of diclofenac was highly toxic to both species, indicating that they are at least as sensitive to diclofenac as G. bengalensis, for which we estimate an LD50 of 0.1-0.2 mg kg(-1). We suggest that diclofenac is likely to be toxic to all eight Gyps species, and that G. africanus, which is phylogenetically close to G. bengalensis, would be a suitable surrogate for the safety testing of alternative drugs to diclofenac.

SUBMITTER: Swan GE

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1618889 | biostudies-other | 2006 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

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Toxicity of diclofenac to Gyps vultures.

Swan Gerry E GE Cuthbert Richard R Quevedo Miguel M Green Rhys E RE Pain Deborah J DJ Bartels Paul P Cunningham Andrew A AA Duncan Neil N Meharg Andrew A AA Oaks J Lindsay JL Parry-Jones Jemima J Shultz Susanne S Taggart Mark A MA Verdoorn Gerhard G Wolter Kerri K

Biology letters 20060601 2

Three endemic vulture species Gyps bengalensis, Gyps indicus and Gyps tenuirostris are critically endangered following dramatic declines in South Asia resulting from exposure to diclofenac, a veterinary drug present in the livestock carcasses that they scavenge. Diclofenac is widely used globally and could present a risk to Gyps species from other regions. In this study, we test the toxicity of diclofenac to a Eurasian (Gyps fulvus) and an African (Gyps africanus) species, neither of which is th ...[more]

PMID: 17148382

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Project description:Veterinary use of the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory (NSAID) drug diclofenac in South Asia has resulted in the collapse of populations of three vulture species of the genus Gyps to the most severe category of global extinction risk. Vultures are exposed to diclofenac when scavenging on livestock treated with the drug shortly before death. Diclofenac causes kidney damage, increased serum uric acid concentrations, visceral gout, and death. Concern about this issue led the Indian Government to announce its intention to ban the veterinary use of diclofenac by September 2005. Implementation of a ban is still in progress late in 2005, and to facilitate this we sought potential alternative NSAIDs by obtaining information from captive bird collections worldwide. We found that the NSAID meloxicam had been administered to 35 captive Gyps vultures with no apparent ill effects. We then undertook a phased programme of safety testing of meloxicam on the African white-backed vulture Gyps africanus, which we had previously established to be as susceptible to diclofenac poisoning as the endangered Asian Gyps vultures. We estimated the likely maximum level of exposure (MLE) of wild vultures and dosed birds by gavage (oral administration) with increasing quantities of the drug until the likely MLE was exceeded in a sample of 40 G. africanus. Subsequently, six G. africanus were fed tissues from cattle which had been treated with a higher than standard veterinary course of meloxicam prior to death. In the final phase, ten Asian vultures of two of the endangered species (Gyps bengalensis, Gyps indicus) were dosed with meloxicam by gavage; five of them at more than the likely MLE dosage. All meloxicam-treated birds survived all treatments, and none suffered any obvious clinical effects. Serum uric acid concentrations remained within the normal limits throughout, and were significantly lower than those from birds treated with diclofenac in other studies. We conclude that meloxicam is of low toxicity to Gyps vultures and that its use in place of diclofenac would reduce vulture mortality substantially in the Indian subcontinent. Meloxicam is already available for veterinary use in India.

Project description:BackgroundDrugs photostability plays two different opposite roles; a real advantage arises considering the longer expiration time of the drugs while the consequent persistence in the environment involves an obvious negative effect bound to their harmfulness.On this basis we tested the photostability and toxicity of three pharmaceutical active principles: Finasteride, Diclofenac and Naproxen. The pure active principles, as well as commercial drugs containing them, were considered; for the last, the protective effect of the packaging was also evaluated. Samples were irradiated according to the ICH Guidelines for photostability testing (The International Conference on Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Registration of Pharmaceuticals for Human Use); a simulating sunlight source (a mercury-vapor lamp coupled to a tungsten filament one) was used to cover the wavelength range 300-2000 nm; Temperature, Relative Humidity, Irradiance and Illuminance were maintained constant during the photodegradation. The concentrations of the pharmaceutical active principles during the photodegradation were monitored by HPLC with UV/Vis detector. Toxicity tests were performed by means of an amperometric biosensor based on suspended yeast cells. Since the products obtained by the photodegradation process can result as toxic or more toxic than the original molecules, tests were performed first and after the photodegadation.ResultsAfter 90 hours of exposure the concentration resulted lowered by 42.9%, 88.4% and 91% for Finasteride, Naproxen and Diclofenac respectively. Toxicity of the pure active principles follows the same order of the photostability. After photodegradation a contribute of the reaction products was evidenced.ConclusionsThe simple and cheap analytical procedure here proposed, allowed to obtain not only data on photostability and toxicity of the pure active principles but, even if roughly, also useful information on the reactions kinetic and toxicity of the photodegradation products.

Dataset Information

Toxicity of diclofenac to Gyps vultures.

Publications

Toxicity of diclofenac to Gyps vultures.

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