Perchlorate in Baby Food: How Did It Get There?

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Woody101
I just read the following article on MSN News http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30028134/wid/11915773?GT1=31036 and I was wondering what kind of perchlorates? The only perchlorate rocket fuel I am famaliar with is ammonium perchlorate used in the solid fuel boosters on the Space Shuttle. That was the same stuff that gave Pepcon in Henderson, NV a new address with 17 different zip codes back in the late 80s. Anybody got any idea of how it could get into baby food?
 
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Interesting article. Here is another one: http://www.organicconsumers.org/perchlorate.htm

Which tastes better; antifreeze, lead, or rocket fuel?
 
The story reported that the baby food that contained cow's milk had the highest contamination levels. Perchlorate has been found in 350 water supplies in California including the Colorado River.

Perchlorate contaminates more than 350 drinking water sources in California alone. Nationally, perchlorate contamination of drinking water has been confirmed by testing in 22 states. Among contaminated sources is the Colorado River, which not only provides drinking water for Los Angeles, Phoenix, Las Vegas and other cities, but also irrigates 1.4 million acres of farmland in California and Arizona. Many crop and feed plants, including lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes and alfalfa, concentrate perchlorate in their tissues when grown with contaminated water. This perchlorate, in turn, can be passed along in cows' (or human's) milk.

http://www.ewg.org/reports/rocketmilk
 
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http://www.enzian.org/images/brouhaha/2008/Rocket_Baby.jpg
 
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Perchlorates aren't terribly dangerous or toxic in solution. The perchlorate ion (solvated) is unusually stable, which is related to why perchlorate salts are so very unstable.