The EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, is getting into the act now. It’s concerned that BPA is harming aquatic life. In an announcement, the agency cites several studies that have found BPA to have an impact on the growth, reproduction and development of aquatic organisms, even in tiny amounts.

Reader’s Digest features an article on clean water on its cover for August. “We have the safest drinking water in the world–except for the pesticides that sometimes sneak in. And the rocket fuel. And the antibiotics…”

The FDA and the EPA are using outdated testing and review procedures for chemicals, according to scientists representing societies from eight fields who signed a letter in the journal Science.

Want to avoid BPA? Don’t eat canned food. Don’t touch credit card receipts. (I know, we have to touch them.) And of course, don’t drink water or soda that has been stored in plastic bottles.

Drinking water contaminations have affected water piped to more than 49 million Americans since 2004, according to an exhaustive study just completed by The New York Times. And while the government is aware of the violations, it has rarely fined or punished the violators.

In response to concerns expressed by scientists, the EPA in January issued a “health advisory” on perchlorate and asked for review of the issue from the National Academy of Sciences. Meanwhile, infants are getting too much perchlorate, from both the powdered formula and from the water used to mix it.

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) identifies perchlorate as a thyroid toxin that particularly affects infants and fetuses.

The EPA last year decided not to regulate perchlorate as a drinking water pollutant, according to the medicalnewstoday.com article.