Carbon removes almost all chemicals from the water, although most people say it eventually releases the chemicals back into the water, although I don't know if thats true or not.
I try to avoid carbon though, which is very hard now that all filter cartridges have carbon built into the back of them
It's a subject of much debate. About the only things that people seem to agree on are:
Activated carbon does a good job of removing medications.
Activated carbon quickly loses its effectiveness -- although opinions vary greatly on how long "quickly" is (from a couple of days up to a month).
