It's a brave new world, isn't it? By which I mean, we who live here at this time must be brave to do so. There's random dangers everywhere what with all the chemicals and whatnot that go into creating the plastics and other materials used in everything we use and buy in the stores. Perchlorate is one of these things, a danger that's been growing in significance in recent years.
Perchlorate found in breast milk across US
(16:30 23 February 2005; NewScientist.com news service; Maggie McKee)
... [Perchlorate] may disrupt metabolism in adults and lead to mental retardation in children.
Perchlorate is a component of fuel for rockets and missiles and also appears to be made naturally in the atmosphere and stored in the soil. It is widely found in the US water supply and has previously been detected in samples of dairy milk and lettuce.
This New Scientist article discusses a study performed across the U.S., in 23 states. Scary, but exactly what is the danger?
Perchlorate knocks an iodine ion off a protein that transports the ion to the thyroid. That can lead to iodine deficiency, which impairs thyroid development and is thought to be the main cause of mental retardation in young children, says Dasgupta.
Yup, scary
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