A hundred volunteers are participating in a six-month drinking water study that asks them to take pills containing up to three milligrams of perchlorate, an industrial pollutant found in rocket fuel.

A hundred volunteers recruited by Loma Linda Medical Center in Loma Linda, Calif., are participating in a six-month drinking water study that asks them to take pills containing up to three milligrams of perchlorate, an industrial pollutant found in rocket fuel. This amount is 83 times more than a person would get drinking water containing the amount allowed by California's Department of Health Services. At high doses, scientists say perchlorate can inhibit production of thyroid hormones. The experiment, funded by Lockheed Martin, is trying to determine whether small doses of perchlorate, like those found in water supplies in California, interfere with thyroid glands.