The Environmental Protection Agency in U.S. is gearing up for one of the most ambitious projects ever proposed to test chemicals found in everyday products for harmful side effects. Under contract to the agency, OSI Pharmaceuticals Inc., has been asked to show how the drug industry's advanced automated techniques for hunting down useful compounds could also be used to qucikly screen thousands of chemicals, from plastics to pesticides, looking for those that might interfere with the hormonal systems of people and wildlife.