Perchlorate Errata

The other day, I took MSNBC to task, and by inference, other mainstream media outlets, for stating that the “National Academy of Sciences raises by 20 times the amount of rocket fuel pollution in drinking water considered ‘safe'. . .”. At the time, I was just being snippy over journalistic cluelessness in general about safety and health risk concepts with regard to chemical exposure.

Unfortunately, that had been written right after I had committed the same error (which was taking the NAS Reference Dose to calculate a drinking water action level using the default 2 L/day drinking water rate and 70 kg body weight for adults, not correcting for intake from other sources such as diet, not addressing potentially sensitive populations such as women of childbearing age and newborns. . . . and so forth). As the Environmental Working Group rightly points out, the NAS said no such thing, and the process from going from a Reference Dose to a drinking water standard is a little more complex than depicted by nearly everyone, myself included.

It serves me right for trying to get something out in response out to a “hot” news story.