Health/Toxics: Rocket Fuel (Perchlorate)

A series of major studies by the CDC and other scientists have confirmed what many in the public health community have suspected for years – that perchlorate contamination in the environment has become a significant threat to public health. These studies establish that exposure to perchlorate is widespread and that the levels of perchlorate that are found in people are associated with significant decreases in thyroid hormone levels.

Perchlorate has been long established in the medical literature as a potent compound with known capacity to lower thyroid hormone levels. Low thyroid hormone levels in pregnant women and infants, in turn, are an established risk factor for abnormal brain development in the fetus and intellectual deficits in children.

The question that has challenged public health professionals for the past decade is establishing the significance of the public health threat presented by the levels of perchlorate to which people are actually exposed. In the past year, this question has been largely resolved.

We now know that perchlorate in the environment and, more importantly, perchlorate levels detected in women of childbearing age and in breast milk are associated with statistically significant, measurable, and adverse changes in thyroid hormone levels that present very real health risks to infants and children.