In my last post I mentioned how the European Commission intends to regulate the synthetic estrogen compound ethinyl estradiol (EE2), which has been discovered to cause ecological damage to aquatic species. The Atlantic magazine recently published their annual “Ideas Issue,” and one of their big ideas was to allow the pill to be sold over the counter.

The reasons given are compelling: oral contraceptives are safe and effective, but prescription and health insurance barriers can thwart consistence use, which undermines their effectiveness and can lead to unwanted pregnancies and abortions. Allowing over-the-counter selling of the pill could help solve these problems.

Okay, those are good reasons. But unfortunately greater access to synthetic estrogens could ultimately lead to serious environmental problems. These compounds pass through the body and are often not completely degraded by wastewater treatment processes. Most treated wastewater is eventually discharged to surface water bodies, and then aquatic organisms are exposed to these and other compounds. As so often happens in our societies, solving one problem leads to unintended consequences in another area. If we want to protect our aquatic environments from EE2 and other pharmaceuticals, we’ll either need to spend a lot more money on cleaning up our wastewater, or do something to reduce the amounts of these compounds entering our wastewater. If we choose to make the pill more accessible, we’d better be willing to spend lots more money on wastewater treatment.

Here, here, and here are a few links to studies and information on estrogens in the environment.