For Immediate Release:
Contact: Carol
Goldberg (202) 265-7337
EPA DROPPED BALL ON PHARMACEUTICALS
IN DRINKING WATER
Decade Behind
Statutory Deadlines to Screen Chemicals from Drinking Water
Washington, DC - Scientists have known about the
widespread presence of chemicals from pesticides, pharmaceuticals and personal
care products in our drinking water for decades, despite recent media coverage
of the issue. In 1996, Congress ordered
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to address the issue, but the
agency has missed deadlines and avoided addressing the growing contamination,
according to an analysis released today by Public Employees for Environmental
Responsibility (PEER).
Chemicals from over-the-counter and prescription
medications, dietary supplements, hormones, cleaning agents and other products
are not completely metabolized by the human body and are not screened in water
treatment, and thus end up being discharged into rivers and lakes and entering
our drinking water supplies. Many of
these chemicals are also endocrine-disrupting compounds (EDCs) that either
block or mimic natural hormones, thereby disrupting normal functionin g of
organs.
In 1996, the U.S. Congress directed EPA to screen
chemicals for hormonal effects on humans in the Food Quality Protection
Act. During the intervening 12 years,
EPA has done remarkably little, despite mounting evidence that thousands of
chemical compounds are a spreading presence in drinking water:
EPA is not listing known EDCs on its Contaminant
Candidate List of priority contaminants which are anticipated to occur in
public water systems. Even if EDCs made
this list, however, Contaminant Candidates are still not regulated under
federal drinking water regulations;
Although it has identified more than 87,000 suspected
EDCs, it has taken EPA 11 years (July 2007) to publish a list of only 73
chemicals for which it proposes to begin screening; and
EPA has repeatedly missed statutory deadlines to begin
testing and screening for EDCs.
"EPA has simply shirked its duty to protect
EPA's webpage on pharmaceuticals and personal care
products (PPCPs) contains a bald assertion that these chemicals do not harm
humans: "To date, scientists have
found no evidence of adverse human health effects from PPCPs in the
environment." This assertion,
however, is contradicted not only by scientists outside of EPA, but also from
EPA's own scientists and publications.
EPA publications state, for example, "Endocrine
disruptors … may cause a variety of problems with, for example, development,
behavior, and reproduction. They have
the potential to impact both human and wildlife populations";
Respected scientists outside the EPA, including at the
World Health Organization, also caution that exposure to EDCs can result in
adverse health impacts to non-humans, and therefore we must invoke the
precautionary principal when considering the potential impacts on humans; and
The drug industry itself is expressing more concern than
EPA. The Associated Press quoted Mary
Buzby, director of environmental technology for Merck & Co. Inc, as saying
"There's no doubt about it, pharmaceuticals are being detected in the
environment and there is genuine concern that these compounds, in the small
concentrations that they're at, could be causing impacts to human health or to
aquatic organisms."
"Fetuses are at risk from even one part per
quadrillion of certain chemicals, and children, the elderly, and people with
immune deficiencies are more sensitive than the general population. This exposure pathway should be cause for
great concern, not bland assurances," Bennett added. "When it should be pressing forward, EPA
is spinning in place, as if it has overdosed on pharmaceuticals."
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Read the PEER analysis
Visit the EPA webpage for PPCPs
Look at EPA's drinking water Contaminant Candidate List
View the Endocrine Disruptor webpage of the American
Water Works Association