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Paper short abstract:

Despite regulation, it will take a long time before pharmaceutical estrogens such as EE2 will be phased out. There thus remains a need for affective measures to awaken concern. Similar metaphors that have been used to articulate biodiversity concern should be used regarding pharmaceutical estrogens.

Paper long abstract:

Ethinyl estradiol or EE2 is one of the most potent pharmaceutical estrogens, causing a number of irreversible changes to the reproductive systems of organisms across the globe. It is also one of the few such chemicals for which regulatory action has been undertaken in the EU. However, it is anticipated that it will take a very long time before this chemical will be phased out of production. One problem is the general silence of the public on this issue, another is that the cost of addressing the problem might lead to the "solution" being just learning to live with the damage. Even those however who recognize the severity of the issue find fault in the ways in which the issue has hitherto been represented in public discourse, i.e. as either a regulatory dilemma or as a matter of personal avoidance of chemicals by women. This paper agrees with the thrust of the latter criticism. Yet there remains a clear need for affective measures to be taken in order to awaken the too silent public. To address this, I suggest that similar metaphors that have been used to articulate concern for biodiversity loss - "burning" "the data" stored in "the library of life" - should be used for awakening concern for pharmaceutical estrogens, the urgent threat here being the continuous and irreversible corrosion of the "printing press" used to produce the "books" in the ever smaller " library of life".