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The U.S Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on March 31 announced that it will not regulate the chemical called perchlorate in drinking water. Perchlorate is widely used in rocket fuel and munitions, fertilizers, and is also a component of fireworks and airbag initiators for vehicles, among other things. While it can occur naturally, high concentrations have been found in at least 26 states, typically near military bases and defense contractors in the U.S. West, particularly around Las Vegas and in Southern California. Human exposure to high levels of the chemical has been linked to a deficiency of iodide in the thyroid...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – A chemical used in explosives, fireworks and rocket fuel has been found in powdered baby formula in the United States, the non-profit Environmental Working Group (EWG) said. In "little-noticed findings," researchers at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that 15 brands of baby formula contained perchlorate, an oxidizer in solid fuels used in explosives, fireworks, road flares and rocket motors, the EWG said. "Studies have established that the chemical is a potent thyroid toxin that may interfere with fetal and infant brain development," it said. The EWG said the CDC study's findings raised...

State regulators have begun reviewing a drinking-water standard for a common inland contaminant. The California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment will review the public health goal for perchlorate - an ingredient in explosives and some fertilizers - in 2009, said the office's deputy director for external and legislative affairs, said Sam Delson via e-mail. The public health goal is the first step in setting a drinking-water standard. Environmentalists, who complained the last public health goal of 6 parts per billion set in 2004 was too high, welcomed the news. One part per billion translates into a drop of water...

Contessa Brewer has suggested that Pres. Bush should be ashamed by his administration's decision to exempt the chemical perchlorate from federal regulation. Speaking with a Republican guest this afternoon, the MNSBC host analogized the decision to Bill Clinton's scandalous last-minute pardons. Did Brewer ever read the official EPA explanation of its ruling, or had she only looked at articles like this one from an environmental activist group, "subtly" featuring a huge photo of a baby drinking from its bottle? View video here.

With the election of a new President and Congress that pander to environmental extremists, it is not surprising that the public is again being misled about perchlorate in drinking water on the world wide web. The new environmental treachery is that perchlorate is a “neurotoxin,” a claim now being spread over the world-wide web by WiredScience and Chemistry.com, websites known as unreliable sources of information. In an article entitled “Feds Set to Eliminate Water Regulations to Toxin,” posted at WiredScience on December 3, 2008, writer Brandon Keim wrote: “Among the Bush administration's final environmental legacies will be a decision to...

WASHINGTON -- The Environmental Protection Agency says there's no need to rid drinking water of a toxic rocket fuel ingredient that has fouled water supplies around the country, including in California. The EPA's conclusion is in a draft document not yet made public but reviewed Monday by the Associated Press.

New results from NASA's Phoenix Mars lander suggest that the surface layers of the Martian arctic region may not be as friendly to life as initial results suggested, NASA said today. Two samples analyzed within the last month by Phoenix's Microscopy, Electrochemistry and Conductivity Analyzer (MECA) suggest that the Martian dirt may contain perchlorate, a highly oxidizing substance, which would create a harsh environment for any potential life. The findings stand against the results from MECA's first analysis, which indicated the dirt was Earth-like in certain respects, including its pH and the presence of certain minerals. "Initial MECA analyses suggested...

Scientists have linked exposure to small levels of a chemical found in public drinking water supplies in 26 states to suppressed thyroid function in more than a third of women and girls 12 and older.     The exposure to perchlorate, a study showed, was most acute in women with low levels of iodine in their systems, said Dr. James L. Pirkle, director of sciences in the federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention's Environmental Health laboratory and the study's author.     "It's already been known that high levels of exposure to perchlorate [reduce] thyroid function, but this large study of more...

Gov. Schwarzenegger signed legislation Thursday that is intended to give parents and guardians more information about potential problems at licensed child-care facilities. The bill by Assemblyman John J. Benoit, R-Bermuda Dunes, stemmed from the March 2004 drowning of Aryanna Sanchez in an above-ground spa at a Riverside day-care center. A social worker had cited the center's husband-wife operators at least once for leaving the spa uncovered. But Aryanna's mother, Anita Aguilar, never knew of the violation. Under AB 633, child-care centers are required to make available investigative reports and other paperwork, including evidence of the state's intent to pull a...

The Food and Drug Administration bans over-the-counter sales of an emergency contraceptive that its own science advisers say would prevent half the nation's annual 3 million unintended pregnancies. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wipes out references to the proper use of condoms to prevent both pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, and instead warns that condoms might fail. The Department of Health and Human Services cooks the books on "abstinence-only" sex education by conveniently forgetting that such programs have not been proven to diminish sexual activity or teenage pregnancies. The Department of Defense forsakes plans to mandate testing for...

MSM Gets Perchlorate Story Mostly Wrong -- Rebuttal Letter to Peter Waldman of Wall Street Journal on Perchlorate To: Editor, Wall Street Journal From: The Pasadena Pundit Re: Peter Waldman, "Inside Pentagon's Fight to Limit Regulation of Military Pollutant" (P.1 banner headline) Peter Waldman, "Campus, Industry set up a Confab" (P. 5). Wall Street Journal, December 29, 2005 Wall Street Journal environmental journalist Peter Waldman's use of the rhetorical device of casting aspersions on the motives of Pentagon contractors in establishing a safe dose for perchlorate in drinking water misinforms the public and is an infuriating diversion from serious policy...

Perchlorate Property Damage Lawsuit Fails JURY'S RULING FOR COMPANY DISAPPOINTS HOMEOWNERS By Paul Rogers Mercury News - Aug. 13,2005 Excerpt: A federal jury on Friday rejected the claims of a group of South Santa Clara County homeowners who said they suffered significant financial and emotional damages after their drinking-water wells were contaminated with perchlorate, a chemical found in road flares and rocket fuel. After only a day of deliberation, the six-person jury in San Jose district court found in favor of Olin, a Norwalk, Conn.- based company that has taken responsibility for the pollution. The jury awarded no money to...

Warnings on Food for Perchlorate Rejected by Scientific Panel for State Agency Friday, August 12, 2005 By DAVID DANELSKI / The Press-Enterprise Excerpt: A California health panel decided Thursday not to add the rocket-fuel chemical perchlorate to a list of substances that cause reproductive harm. A listing could have prompted public warnings about milk, lettuce and other produce containing the chemical. The panel concluded that scientific research hasn't clearly shown that the chemical causes birth defects or other serious harm to fetuses. Under Prop. 65, the state's toxic-warning law, the public must be told about the presence of "reproductive toxicants"...

Study Suggests Perchlorate Made by Lightning! May Explain Why It's Found in Drinking Water Also Generated in Elevated Water Storage Tanks from Static Electricity "The lightning there is peculiar; it is so convincing, that when it strikes a thing it doesn't leave enough of that thing behind for you to tell whether--Well, you'd think it was something valuable, and a Congressman had been there. - "The Weather," Mark Twain's Speeches A new study by the same academic researcher who reported finding perchlorate in human milk now suggests that perchlorate may be created by lightning. This would explain why perchlorate has...

10News.com gets a minus ten on perchlorate story Written by Wayne Lusvardi "A journalist's knowledge is thirty miles wide, but only one inch deep." Alexandra Kitty, Don't Believe It! How Lies Become News (2005) The San Diego Channel 10 News story "Is Rocket Fuel Tainting Our Water?" (April 29) http://www.10news.com/investigations/4433415/detail.html, about the purported dangers of perchlorate in drinking water, must have set a record for the number of errors per 100 words. Ten errors that come to mind are: 1. Perchlorate is not "rocket fuel;" it is a natural oxygenate originally found in the form of a salt in soil...

California Town Going Broke Partly Because Media Gets Story about Perchlorate Wrong - Putting the environmental cart before the scienfitic horse Written by Wayne Lusvardi Saturday, April 24, 2005 Vector - In biology a vector is something, such as insects, that can spread disease. By extension, a vector could be someone who spreads a rumor or hoax: it could be anyone or anything that pollutes the information stream." --Alexandra Kitty, Don't Believe It! How Lies Become News (2005) An April 23, 2005 story by Associated Press writer Erica Werner "Town's water tainted by perchlorate; 36 states eye problems" reports that...

Sadly, Environmental Reality Has Become Media Reality Excerpt: Spin: Perchlorate found in human breast milk Unspin: Study finds perchlorate in breast milk NOT from drinking water! Once again a major environmental health study gets top billing in the headlines of the San Francisco Chronicle only to get the story all backwards. The headline “Rocket fuel contaminant found in women’s breast milk” (Feb. 23) merely regurgitates press releases from politicians and environmental activists posing as scientists and fails to tell the true story behind the recent report that perchlorate was found for the first time in human breast milk. So how...

A toxic component of rocket fuel has been found in breast milk of women in 18 states and store-bought milk from various locations around the country. The chemical, perchlorate, can impede adult metabolism and cause retardation in fetuses, among other things. It leaches into groundwater from various military facilities. Previous studies have found perchlorate in drinking water, on lettuce, and in cows milk. The new research, announced this week, suggests perchlorate is a bigger problem than thought, scientists said. Texas Tech University researchers studied 36 samples of breast milk from women in 18 states and 47 samples cow's milk purchased...

PERCHLORATE PARANOIA PERCOLATING IN PASADENA: Misperceiving "Malign Intent" in New Water Quality Guidelines By Wayne Lusvardi Newspaper columns in Southern California newspapers are bubbling with a new paranoia from those on the left side of the political spectrum about the recently released new safety guidelines for perchlorate in drinking water recommended by the National Academy of Sciences. The suspicion is that the Bush administration has somehow put its thumb on the prestigious National Academy, and like allegedly rigged elections and deceitful wars, is jeopardizing children's health by loosening the former EPA standard of 1 part per billion to 20 parts...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 10 - In an eagerly awaited report on perchlorate, one of the most controversial unregulated toxic pollutants in the country's drinking water and food supplies, the National Academy of Sciences said Monday that people would be safe if exposed to daily doses 20 times those under consideration by the Environmental Protection Agency. Depending on how federal and state regulators interpret the academy's recommendation, the Defense Department, its contractors and other federal agencies responsible for contamination from perchlorate, a component of solid rocket fuel, could avoid cleanup costs of hundreds of millions of dollars. The environmental agency and the...