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Gary L. Ginsberg,¹ Dale B. Hattis,² R. Thomas Zoeller,³ and Deborah C. Rice⁴

¹Connecticut Department of Public Health, Hartford, Connecticut, USA; ²Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA; ³University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts, USA; ⁴Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Augusta, Maine, USA

Abstract
Background: Perchlorate is a common contaminant of drinking water and food. It competes with iodide for uptake into the thyroid, thus interfering with thyroid hormone production. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response (OSWER) set a groundwater preliminary remediation goal (PRG) of 24.5 µg/L to prevent exposure of pregnant women that would affect the fetus. This does not account for the greater exposure that is possible in nursing infants or for the relative source contribution (RSC) , a factor normally used to lower the PRG due to nonwater exposures.

Objectives: Our goal was to assess whether the OSWER PRG protects infants against exposures from breast-feeding, and to evaluate the perchlorate RSC.

Methods: We used Monte Carlo analysis to simulate nursing infant exposures associated with the OSWER PRG when combined with background perchlorate.

Results: The PRG can lead to a 7-fold increase in breast milk concentration, causing 90% of nursing infants to exceed the reference dose (RfD) (average exceedance, 2.8-fold) . Drinking-water perchlorate must be < 6.9 µg/L to keep the median, and < 1.3 µg/L to keep the 90th-percentile nursing infant exposure below the RfD. This is 3.6- to 19-fold below the PRG. Analysis of biomonitoring data suggests an RSC of 0.7 for pregnant women and of 0.2 for nursing infants. Recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggest that the RfD itself needs to be reevaluated because of hormonal effects in the general population.

Conclusions: The OSWER PRG for perchlorate can be improved by considering infant exposures, by incorporating an RSC, and by being responsive to any changes in the RfD resulting from the new CDC data.

Key words: drinking water, neurodevelopment, nursing infants, perchlorate, PRG, thyroid hormone. Environ Health Perspect 115:361–369 (2007) . doi:10.1289/ehp.9533 available via http://dx.doi.org/ [Online 11 December 2006]

Address correspondence to G. Ginsberg, Connecticut Department of Public Health, 410 Capitol Ave., Mail Stop 11CHA, Hartford, CT 06134 USA. Telephone: (860) 509-7750. Fax: (860) 509-7785. E-mail: gary.ginsberg@po.state.ct.us

R.T. Zoeller has a basic research grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to study thyroid toxicants, including perchlorate.

The authors declare they have no competing financial interests.

Received 20 July 2006 ; accepted 11 December 2006.