Stat Cards

In communities with PFAS-contaminated downstream water sources, compared to upstream communities.

Associated with PFAS-contaminated drinking water during pregnancy, per 2025 University of Arizona study.

In the U.S., approximately 1 in 5 pregnant women drink water exceeding the EPA's 4 ppt PFAS health advisory level.

The neural tube — which becomes the brain and spinal cord — closes at day 21–28. Most women don't know they're pregnant until week 4–6.

Infant skin absorbs contaminants at up to 5 times the rate of adult skin due to a thinner, less-developed stratum corneum.

A 10-minute bath in chlorinated water delivers more chloroform via dermal absorption and inhalation than drinking 2 liters of the same water.

Ceramides are the lipid molecules that form the skin's barrier. Infants have 30% less ceramide, making their skin barrier significantly more permeable to chlorine and contaminants.

Infants under 12 months are bathed an average of 4 times per week. Each bath is a direct dermal exposure event to chlorine, chloramines, and any dissolved contaminants.

The EPA's legal arsenic limit of 10 ppb is approximately 2,500 times higher than the 0.004 ppb level toxicologists consider safe for newborn exposure.

The CDC, WHO, and EPA all state that no safe blood lead level exists in children. The EPA's legal limit of 15 ppb in drinking water was set for infrastructure feasibility, not child safety.

The most comprehensive national PFAS study to date, conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey in 2023, found PFAS in at least 45% of U.S. drinking water samples.

EWG's analysis of EPA data found that more than 200 million Americans receive water from public systems with PFAS above the 1 part-per-trillion health concern threshold.

A 10-minute hot shower exposes you to approximately 6 times more chloroform — via skin absorption and steam inhalation — than drinking 2 liters of the same tap water.

In a household using chlorinated tap water, showering accounts for 63% of total chloroform exposure — more than drinking and all other uses combined.

Trihalomethanes (THMs) are volatile at shower temperatures. A 10-minute hot shower releases more THM vapor into the air than boiling the same water for a full hour.

Unlike ingested contaminants filtered by the digestive system, chloroform and THMs inhaled during a shower pass directly into the bloodstream through the lung lining with near-complete absorption.

EWG's Tap Water Database has detected over 316 chemicals in U.S. drinking water. The EPA has legal limits for fewer than 100 of them.

Of the 316+ chemicals detected in U.S. tap water, fewer than 100 have any federal legal limit. The remaining 216+ have zero regulatory protection.