DON’T BLAME THE PILL

Abstract

BIRTH CONTROL PILLS often take the blame for estrogen pollution in rivers, lakes, and reservoirs. A new metastudy by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, however, finds that oral contraceptives are not the source of most of the estrogens found in U.S. and European waterways ( Environ. Sci. Technol., DOI: 10.1021/es1014482). Nearly 11 million women in the U.S. use oral contraceptives, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a non-profit organization that researches sexual and reproductive issues. The synthetic estrogens and progestin in these pills flow into wastewater treatment systems via urine and feces. But estrogen-like chemicals also enter waterways from other sources, such as large-scale animal farms, landfills, and non-birth-control pharmaceuticals. To better understand the sources of estrogens in drinking water, UC San Francisco postdoctoral fellow Amber Wise and her colleagues reviewed 82 studies. Using the data they gathered, the researchers estimated that ethinylestradiol,...