Low Levels Of Perchlorate Found In Lettuce & Milk From Sea To Shining Sea

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Federal investigators have found traces of a rocket fuel component in milk and lettuce from Salinas to Cedarville, N.J., according to new government data. Perchlorate was detected in about 90 percent of 128 lettuce samples and in all but three of the agency's 104 milk samples, but not at levels that prompted alarm at the Food and Drug Administration.

"I think that suggests a much broader distribution (of perchlorate) than anybody thought, and the basis of that distribution I don't think is adequately known," said Robert Krieger, an extension toxicologist at the University of California, Riverside. The FDA said it wasn't recommending diet changes based on its findings, which resulted from the most comprehensive search to date for perchlorate in food. Still, one consumer watchdog group said the data should spark cleanup efforts, and farm groups wondered what it all meant for their products.

Perchlorate is both a naturally occurring and man-made compound. Most of the perchlorate manufactured nationwide is used as the primary ingredient in rocket fuel. In recent years, increasingly sophisticated measuring equipment has detected perchlorate in water supplies, such as the Colorado River, and in foods. Crops likely are tainted by perchlorate-laced irrigation water.

At high doses, perchlorate can disrupt thyroid function, although scientists and health officials said the levels being detected nationally are not a concern for healthy adults."

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