Children's Health Panel says EPA failing to protect kids
http://www.foodconsumer.org/777/8/Children_s_Health_Panel_Says_EPA_Failing_to_Protect_Kids_From_Rocket_Fuel.shtml
WASHINGTON, March 15 - In a sharp rebuke to the Bush Administration,
a federal advisory committee on children's health warns that the
EPA's recommended cleanup level for a rocket fuel chemical fails to
protect children, fetuses and mothers. The warning comes as Massachusetts,
pointedly rejecting the EPA guidelines, is setting the nation's
first enforceable safety standards for the chemical 12 times more
stringent than the federal cleanup level.
Perchlorate is the explosive ingredient in solid rocket fuel.
It has been found in drinking water, groundwater and soil in
at least 40 states, with most known contamination coming from
military bases and defense industry plants.
Even small doses have been found in animal studies to disrupt
proper functioning of the thyroid gland. For fetuses, infants
and children, changes in thyroid hormone levels can cause lowered
IQ, mental retardation, loss of hearing and speech, and
motor skill deficits.
The advisory committee said it is troubled that the EPA's
recently set remediation goal does not attempt to account
for exposures to perchlorate from sources other than drinking
water, "an obvious concern given the recent widespread
detection of perchlorate in lettuce and milk."
Tests by the Environmental Working Group, journalists, academic
scientists, the states of California and Utah, and the Food and
Drug Administration, have found the chemical in fresh produce,
supermarket milk and cheese, human breast milk and a variety of
animal feed crops.
"It's time for the EPA to wake up and listen to what the states
and its own advisors are saying: Perchlorate is a threat to
children at very small doses," said Renee Sharp, an Environmental
Working Group scientist who has studied the chemical for six years.
"The Bush Administration has given no sign that it's going to set
a national drinking water standard, and the EPA's recommendations
leave children at risk. A non-enforceable 'standard' that doesn't
protect the most vulnerable populations is worth nothing."
EPA says it can't set a national standard without more
information about levels of perchlorate in food.
Yet the Bush Administration is holding up release of a
study by the Centers for Disease Control that found
perchlorate in the blood of most Americans at levels
close to the EPA's RfD. Since the CDC tests included
people from cities with little or no perchlorate in
their drinking water, those findings indicate that
perchlorate is widespread in the food supply.
Risk Policy Report, an independent newsletter, reported
Feb. 28 that the White House Office of Science & Technology
Policy is pressuring the CDC to delay the release of a study
that tested for perchlorate in human blood samples from the
National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).
An EPA source told the newsletter that CDC has found levels
of perchlorate that "leave no margin of safety" for the public,
compared to EPA's current risk limit.
"In the absence of national safety standards, the CDC should
not be sitting on data so clearly needed to protect the
public from a chemical that appears to be widespread in
drinking water and food," said Sharp. "Once again, in the
face of inaction by the Bush Administration, states such
as Massachusetts and California are stepping forward to
protect public health."
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