Perchlorate, the Safe Drinking Water Act
and Public Health

The subject of more than 60 years of research, perchlorate is one of the most studied chemicals under regulatory review. It is precisely because perchlorate has been so well studied that perchlorate’s lack of health effects are so well understood.
Learn more in our comprehensive, interactive two-page response to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's 2011 Regulatory Determination on Perchlorate.
“Adverse effects of perchlorate exposure are only proposed and have not been demonstrated in humans”
- Source - NAS report, Health Implications of Perchlorate Ingestion (2005)
“Perchlorate does not pose a known cancer risk to the public”
- California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment
“Perchlorate levels below 245 parts per billion in drinking water have no effect on the human body”
- - Source – NAS report, Health Implications of Perchlorate Ingestion (2005)
“Since the 1950’s, perchlorate has been used as a medicine in the US and abroad at levels hundreds and thousands of times higher than the minute traces being detected in the environment.”
“Amitai, et al (2007) studied populations in Israel exposed to perchlorate levels as high as 340 parts per billion and found no differences in key hormone levels among newborns.”
“Pearce, et al (2010, 2011, 2012) examined thousands of pregnant women in the U.S, (California) Wales, Italy, Argentine and Greece in three separate studies, all of which found that perchlorate is not associated with alterations in thyroid function during the critical first trimester of pregnancy.”
“EPA's perchlorate Reference Dose (24.5 parts per billion in water) is conservative and protective of public health, and further reducing perchlorate exposure below the RfD does not effectively lower risk”
- EPA Office of Inspector General Report (2010)
“There is no epidemiologic evidence that environmental or occupational exposure to perchlorate adversely affects thyroid function in the United States.”
- Tarone, et al (2010)
“Although low-level perchlorate exposure was ubiquitous in the pregnant women we studied, perchlorate exposure was not associated with alterations in their thyroid function.”
- Dr. Elizabeth Pearce, as quoted by Reuters
“Consumers should not view the low levels of perchlorate in the foods tested as an indicator of the "risk" of eating certain foods...”

- Dr. Robert Brackett, director of FDA's Center for
Food Safety and Applied Nutrition

Research & Studies

"Health Implications of Perchlorate Ingestion” - a report from the National Research Council’s Committee to Assess the Health Implications of Perchlorate - stands as the single most authoritative and comprehensive examination of perchlorate and human health ever conducted.

The committee reviewed more than 50 years of scientific research, and came to the conclusion that a perchlorate reference dose of 0.0007 milligrams per kilogram of body weight per day (approximately 24.5 parts per billion in drinking water) "should protect the health of even the most sensitive populations."