Perchlorate Review Intensifies

Published January 30, 2008

WASHINGTON — Recently released research based on the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) ongoing Total Diet Study, in which dietary intake of perchlorate is analyzed, has US lawmakers and advocacy groups intensifying their call for a national drinking water limit for the chemical that is most commonly used in rocket fuel. According to the FDA’s analysis of 285 foods, the average 2-year-old is exposed daily to more than half of the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) recommended maximum dose of perchlorate from food alone. Children in at least 28 states also are exposed to perchlorate in tap water. According to advocacy group Environmental Working Group (EWG), which says it also analyzed the FDA study, “Analysis of FDA’s new data shows that every proposed or final drinking water standard fails to protect 2-year-olds from routine, daily, unsafe exposure to perchlorate when combined food and water exposures are considered.” In the EWG analysis, the group quoted a 2006 study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in which the CDC concluded that the EPA’s reference dose (RfD) for perchlorate in drinking water allows for exposure that can have significant effects on the thyroid gland. According to the EWG, “These important findings from the CDC demonstrate that EPA’s current reference dose is not health-protective. … EPA should promptly establish a safety standard for perchlorate in tap water that accounts for findings from the CDC that show that exposures to perchlorate at levels far lower than the EPA’s current safe dose (the RfD) have significant effects on the thyroid gland. In addition, a health-protective drinking water standard must account for widespread, significant exposures to perchlorate from food, especially among children.” Lawmakers, including Rep. Hilda Solis, D-CA, author of HR 1747, which would amend the Safe Drinking Water Act to require the EPA to create a standard for perchlorate, are urging EPA to limit perchlorate in drinking water. “Without a national drinking water standard, young children and other vulnerable persons will be exposed to this contaminant, posing unnecessary risks to their health,” Solis said in a January 29 MarketWatch article. The congressional Subcommittee on Environment and Hazardous Materials recently approved by voice vote the Solis-authored legislation, which now is pending in the full House Energy and Commerce Committee, as WaterTech Online™ reported.