Water Fluoridation Deemed An Unreasonable Risk; EPA Required to Address

The Fluoride Action Network and Attorney Michael Connett have successfully defeated the EPA in court after the judge concluded that water fluoridation presents an unreasonable risk of reducing IQ in children. The decision could be the beginning of the end to water fluoridation in the United States and took seven years to finally come to this conclusion. The HighWire reported last month about the release of the National Toxicology Program (NTP) report that linked fluoride exposure to lower IQ.

Judge Chen, in his ruling stated, “The EPA’s default margin of error requires a factor of 10 between the hazard level and exposure level due to variability in human sensitivities.  Put differently, only an exposure that is below 1/10th of the hazard level would be deemed safe under Amended TSCA, given the margin of error required.  Here, an even greater margin (100x) is owed because the methodology (which yields the 4 mg/L hazard level) uses the lowest observed adverse effect level (“LOAEL”); this methodology adds an additional level of uncertainty (and hence the application of a 100x rather than 10x margin).”

Given the uncertainty, Chen calls for a 100x reduction of fluoride levels from the known hazard level. If EPA follows this model, the “optimal” level of fluoride would drop from 0.7 to 0.04. Chen states that using a factor of 10 would still cause the level to drop to 0.4, which is close to half of the current suggested “optimal” fluoride levels in the water supply.

Stuart Cooper, the executive director of the Fluoride Action Network, authored a blog post following the court victory. He stated that this is the first time a citizen’s petition has gone to trial. It is also the first time a citizen group won a lawsuit against the EPA under TSCA Section 21.

Connett, the lead attorney in the case, is a lawyer for the firm Siri & Glimstad, working alongside ICAN’s lead counsel Aaron Siri. Connett joined Host Del Bigtree on The HighWire last year to discuss the revelations during the case against EPA. He joined Environmental Lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on X-spaces to discuss the case after the ruling.

“We met our burden of proof showing that this practice is an unreasonable risk to health,” Connett said. “Under TSCA, once a court makes that finding, EPA is obligated under the law to eliminate the risk. The court has ordered EPA to initiate a rule-making proceeding to come up with a regulation that will eliminate the risk posed by fluoridation chemicals. Our position of course, it’s not rocket science, is ‘how do you eliminate the risk posed by adding chemicals to drinking water?’ You stop adding them to drinking water. It’s not complicated. This is an opportunity for the U.S. to follow Europe’s path and no longer add fluoride to drinking water.”

Fluoride was first added to the water supply in Grand Rapids, MI in 1945. This was added to improve dental health, but there was no concern about neurological side effects at the time. All fluoride that is added to the water supply is an industrial by-product. Connett explained that more than half of the world’s population consumes fluoride in the United States. He said that 97-98% of Europe does not fluoridate the water supply.

The CDC named community water fluoridation as one of the top 10 public health achievements of the 20th century. Connett disagrees with that assessment and says the data is on his side. Even in the case of the public health benefit it purportedly provides to reduce dental cavities, Connett says the evidence isn’t there to support that claim.

“If you look at the cavity rates in Europe according to WHO data, they’re generally lower and often just as low as the United States,” Connett said. “They’ve seen the same dramatic declines in tooth decay over the past 50-60 years that we’ve seen here in the United States. Dentists here in the United States, many of them, claim it is a result of adding fluoride to the water.”

While the new ruling requires the EPA to begin making rules to eliminate the threat, there is no specific time table that is required for completing the process. During the X-spaces conversation, Kennedy said that process could take seven years to complete. Connett agreed and said that is true, but he believes that communities will begin to take their own steps to remove the neurotoxic chemical from the water supply.

“One of the important things here is that policymakers at the local level, regional level, state level, they don’t need to wait for the EPA to take action here,” Connett explained. “We have a very detailed, thorough, comprehensive decision by the federal court based on extensive expert testimony from both sides. The EPA put up their best, we put up our best and the judge vetted all of the evidence.”

Cooper said the only way to restrict or eliminate the threat posed by fluoride in the water supply is to stop adding it to community water systems. He said, “The harm is needlessly self-inflicted.”

“The EPA may appeal to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, or they could take a few years to develop rules,” Cooper wrote. “In our view, attempts by the EPA to appeal or delay this ruling will only result in harm to hundreds of thousands of additional children, particularly those whose families are unable to afford expensive reverse osmosis or distillation filtration of their tap water.”

Cooper called upon communities to take steps to remove fluoride from water systems rather than waiting for the EPA to enact new rules and guidelines following Judge Chen’s ruling. There is no federal mandate for fluoride, so local communities can make the choice to protect their citizens by ceasing to add a neurotoxic chemical to the water supply.

“The public didn’t sign up to have a chemical added to public drinking water that could adversely affect the brain,” Cooper said. “And while a cavity can easily be filled, damage to the brain is permanent, and the consequences are lifelong. There are no second chances when it comes to impaired brain development.”

Connett explained that about 65-70% of the U.S. water system is fluoridated, but he emphasized that everyone is at risk of fluoride exposure even if their communities are not adding fluoride to the water system. “For the vast majority of large metropolitan areas, almost all of them with just a couple exceptions are fluoridated,” Connett said. “Because you have so many large metropolitan areas fluoridating, so many of our processed beverages and foods cereals and juices and sodas and beers are contaminated with fluoridated water. You’re adding it to all of the foods and beverages that are made with that water supply.”

The Fluoride Action Network encourages the public to share the news of the court ruling and call upon local governments to act rather than wait for the completion of EPA’s potential appeals process.