News Coverage
Cut the spin on perchlorate
Government, farmers are irresponsible to downpay the health risks to
Published December 7, 2003
Last month the federal government released long-awaited results of its tests for perchlorate in winter lettuce irrigated by the Colorado River. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) tests found the chemical, a component of solid rocket fuel, in 60 percent of lettuce samples, which is convincing confirmation of tests separately conducted in April by The Press-Enterprise and by the Environmental Working Group.
But in the face of this evidence, both federal and state officials are still trying to downplay the disturbing fact that toxic rocket fuel - already known to contaminate the drinking water of 20 million people in California, Arizona and Nevada - is increasingly showing up in the nation's food supply.
"We don't see the (perchlorate) accumulation in other crops," the USDA's Allen Jennings told The Press-Enterprise. "We can take comfort in that." That's like telling a patient with two broken legs that he's lucky his arms aren't broken.
Although perchlorate was not found in the USDA's tests of carrots, corn or onions, researchers from the University of Arizona and Texas Tech University have found perchlorate in many other foods and crops, including supermarket milk, tomatoes, strawberries, blackberries, soybeans, cucumbers, melons and alfalfa.
Perchlorate levels measured in many of these foods exceeded the safety levels currently recommended by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the California Department of Health Services, or both.
The Texas Tech researchers wrote: "The significant occurrence of perchlorate in all milk samples analyzed at levels that are comparable or even greater than the current California action level for the concentration of perchlorate in drinking water came as a considerable surprise to us."
The researchers also measured perchlorate in the single sample of human breast milk tested.
Cal-EPA deputy director George Alexeef said he considers "the small amounts of perchlorate found in lettuce" to pose "an insignificant risk level ... I eat a lot of lettuce myself."
But as Alexeef well knows, research has linked very low levels of perchlorate exposure with health effects.
It's not adult males like him who should be worried, but pregnant and breast-feeding women.
Epidemiological studies in California and Arizona found that pregnant women who consumed perchlorate at levels comparable to the dose they'd get from eating just one cup of contaminated lettuce gave birth to infants with altered thyroid hormone levels.
Studies have found that even small fluctuations in thyroid hormone levels during pregnancy can lead to reduced IQ in children.
Like other hormone-disrupting chemicals, perchlorate is harmful not only in large doses, but in very small doses received at critical points in fetal and infant development.
USDA, Cal-EPA and the Western Growers Association all responded as if the findings of perchlorate in lettuce and other crops were an attack on lower Colorado River farmers whose livelihoods must be defended.
It's not the farmers' fault that their water is contaminated with toxic rocket fuel. However, protecting the public health demands that both the government and growers provide straight answers, not spin, to consumer concerns.
No one is suggesting that a healthy adult who eats a limited amount of Colorado River lettuce is, in the short term, at serious risk.
But to fail to advise mothers-to-be that even a small amount of perchlorate may affect their unborn children is irresponsible.
Bill Walker is vice-president of the West Coast branch of the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization with offices in Washington, D.C., and Oakland.