“The risk at issue [is] unreasonable; the exposure is continuous, and nearly all Americans are affected.”

“The scientific literature in the record provides a high level of certainty that a hazard is present; fluoride is associated with reduced IQ.”

“…there is a robust body of evidence finding a statistically significant adverse association between fluoride and IQ.”

These are just some of the excerpts from the new 80-page ruling from the Northern District of California.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has just lost perhaps its most damning court case ever. A public health upending decision that is supercharging the continued shift away from trust in regulatory agencies.

“The court finds there is an unreasonable risk of such injury, a risk sufficient to require the EPA to engage with a regulatory response,” ruled Judge Edward M. Chen with the US District Court for the Northern District of California

“This order does not dictate precisely what that response must be,” Chen said. “…one thing the EPA cannot do, however, in the face of this Court’s finding, is to ignore that risk.”

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) considers community water fluoridation one of the ten greatest public health achievements of the 20th century.  A self-proclaimed achievement, blindly backed by the medical community, lacking long-term scientific studies to prove it’s actually true.  

Those who’ve challenged this view in the past, whether from academia or the general public, have been quickly labeled quacks, conspiracy theorists and other PR industry terms. But gradually, over time and experience, attempts to distract away from inconvenient truths surrounding the fluoridation of public drinking water supply have failed.

A landmark shift in the dogmatic science of water fluoridation occurred in 2019. The highly respected Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Pediatrics published a study: 

Association Between Maternal Fluoride Exposure During Pregnancy and IQ Scores in Offspring in Canada. 

Funded by the Canadian government and the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Science, the study examined the association between fluoride exposure during pregnancy and the IQ scores of the children at ages 3 and 4 years of age. It concluded 

“…maternal exposure to higher levels of fluoride during pregnancy was associated with lower IQ scores in children aged 3 to 4 years. These findings indicate the possible need to reduce fluoride intake during pregnancy.”

Now, the current Northern District of California ruling reflects the long-known science:

“The issue before this Court is whether the Plaintiffs have established by a preponderance of the evidence that the fluoridation of drinking water at levels typical in the United States poses an unreasonable risk of injury to health of the public within the meaning of Amended TSCA. For the reasons set forth below, the Court so finds. Specifically, the Court finds that fluoridation of water at 0.7 milligrams per liter (“mg/L”) – the level presently considered “optimal” in the United States – poses an unreasonable risk of reduced IQ in children.”

Alongside the risk posed by indiscriminate water fluoridation, the landmark ruling goes on to emphasize the urgency to act given the circumstances of exposure:

“The size of the affected population is vast. Approximately 200 million Americans have fluoride intentionally added to their drinking water at a concentration of 0.7 mg/L.”

“Other Americans are indirectly exposed to fluoridated water through consumption of commercial beverages and food manufactured with fluoridated water.”

“Approximately two million pregnant women, and over 300,000 exclusively formula-fed babies are exposed to fluoridated water. The number of pregnant women and formula-fed babies alone who are exposed to water fluoridation each year exceeds entire populations exposed to conditions of use for which EPA has found unreasonable risk; the EPA has found risks unreasonable where the population impacted was less than 500 people.”

It is impossible to predict the impact this current ruling will have on the future of regulatory agencies, trust in public health and the integrity of government science. In the post-COVID era where millions are turning their back on ‘The Science™’ and all its mandates upon humanity, the momentum being created has the potential to spark real, lasting change beyond the now-defunct area of water fluoridation.