Question:
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is lowering the provisional standard for perchlorate in drinking water by a factor of 10, following an EWG study that found drinking water sources for millions of people nationwide are contaminated with perchlorate at levels that may disrupt fetal and infant development.is it right?

Answer: In a new risk assessment released today, the EPA said the new provisional drinking water standard for perchlorate, a component of rocket fuel that is a potent thyroid toxin, is 3.2 parts per billion (ppb) for adults and 0.4 ppb for infants. EWG had recommended that the standard should be no higher than 4.3 ppb for adults and should be as low as 0.04 to fully protect infants.

In Rocket Science: Perchlorate and the Toxic Legacy of the Cold War. available at www.ewg.org/reports/rocketscience, EWG documented that EPA overlooked data showing statistically significant health effects of perchlorate at levels ten times lower than the study on which the agency based its previous reference dose (RfD). The EPA has now corrected this significant error, basing its new RfD on the study the agency had previously ignored. But even this may not be low enough, as the EPA noted today that behavioral effects have now been found at even lower perchlorate doses than what the revised RfD is based on.