{"id":8635,"date":"2024-09-25T13:30:48","date_gmt":"2024-09-25T20:30:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/?p=8635"},"modified":"2024-09-25T13:30:48","modified_gmt":"2024-09-25T20:30:48","slug":"fluoride-in-water-poses-unreasonable-risk-to-children-federal-judge-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/2024\/09\/25\/fluoride-in-water-poses-unreasonable-risk-to-children-federal-judge-rules\/","title":{"rendered":"Fluoride in Water Poses \u201cUnreasonable Risk\u201d to Children, Federal Judge Rules"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Let’s hope this puts an end to them putting fluoride in our water. Though, this is not the only problem with our water and why you should be using some type of filtration on tap water. I have a post<\/a> on filtering water with links to see test results for your local water, along with a very good video showing how good the Clearly Filtered water picture is as the easiest solution for anyone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/thelibertydaily.com\/fluoride-water-poses-unreasonable-risk-children-federal-judge\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
\"Kid<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D., The Defender<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(The Defender<\/a>)\u2014In a decision that could end the practice of water fluoridation in the U.S., a federal judge late Tuesday ruled<\/a> that water fluoridation at current U.S. levels poses an \u201cunreasonable risk\u201d of reduced IQ in children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can no longer ignore that risk, and must take regulatory action, Judge Edward Chen of the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California wrote in the long-awaited landmark decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than 200 million Americans drink water treated with fluoride<\/a> at the \u201coptimal\u201d level of 0.7 milligrams per liter (mg\/L). However, Chen ruled that a preponderance of scientific evidence shows this level of fluoride exposure may damage human health, particularly that of pregnant mothers and young children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The verdict delivers a major blow to the EPA, public health agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and professional lobbying groups like the American Dental Association (ADA), which have staked their reputations on the claim that water fluoridation is one of the greatest public health achievements<\/a> of the 20th century and an unqualified public good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fluoride proponents refused to reexamine that stance<\/a> despite mounting scientific evidence from top researchers<\/a> and government agencies<\/a> of fluoride\u2019s neurotoxic risks, particularly for infants\u2019 developing brains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, they attempted to weaken and suppress the research<\/a> and discredit the scientists<\/a> carrying it out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rick North, board member of Fluoride Action Network, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, told The Defender, \u201cWhat\u2019s false is the CDC claiming that fluoridation is one of the 10 greatest health achievements of the 20th century. What\u2019s true is that ending fluoridation will be one of the 10 greatest health achievements of the 21st century.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe judge did what EPA has long refused to do, and that is to apply the EPA standard risk assessment framework<\/a> to fluoride,\u201d said Michael Connett, attorney for the plaintiffs. \u201cIn so doing, the court has shown that the widespread exposure to fluoride that we now have in the United States is unreasonably and precariously close to the levels that we know cause harm.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The EPA can appeal Tuesday\u2019s decision. The agency<\/a> told The Defender it is reviewing the decision and has no comment at this time. The U.S. Department of Justice, which represents the EPA in the lawsuit, also said it has no comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

EPA\u2019s argument \u2018not persuasive\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The ruling concludes a historic lawsuit<\/a> \u2014 one that has dragged on for seven years \u2014 brought against the EPA by environmental and consumer advocacy organizations like the Fluoride Action Network<\/a>, Moms Against Fluoridation<\/a> and Food & Water Watch<\/a>, along with individual parents and children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is the first lawsuit to go to a federal trial under the Toxic Substances Control Act<\/a> (TSCA), as amended by Congress in 2016. The TSCA allows U.S. citizens to petition the EPA to evaluate whether a chemical presents an unreasonable risk to public health and should be regulated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the EPA denies a TSCA citizen petition \u2014 which the agency did when the plaintiffs asked it to reexamine water fluoridation in 2016 \u2014 the petitioners are entitled to a \u201cde novo\u201d judicial review of the science without the deference to the agency typically afforded it in legal cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chen\u2019s 80-page ruling, issued six months after closing arguments<\/a> in February, offers a careful and detailed articulation of the EPA\u2019s review process for chemicals that pose a hazard to human health and evaluates and summarizes the extensive scientific data presented at trial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chen wrote<\/a>, \u201cEPA\u2019s own expert agrees that fluoride is hazardous at some level.\u201d He cited a key report<\/a> issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) National Toxicology Program (NTP), which undertook a systematic review of all available scientific research at the time of publication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report \u201cconcluded that fluoride is indeed associated with reduced IQ in children, at least at exposure levels at or above 1.5 mg\/L,\u201d Chen wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The NTP also reported that although there are technical challenges to measuring fluoride\u2019s toxic<\/a> effects at low levels, \u201cscientists have observed a statistically significant association between fluoride and adverse effects in children even at such \u2018lower\u2019 exposure levels,\u201d Chen wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said that despite recognizing that fluoride is hazardous, the EPA\u2019s defense rested largely on the fact that the exact level at which it is hazardous is too unclear for the agency to determine whether the chemical presents an unreasonable risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This argument is \u201cnot persuasive,\u201d Chen wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pregnant women exposed to fluoride in water at levels exceeding the hazard level<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The EPA requires a margin of error by a factor of at least 10 to exist between the hazard level for a toxin and the acceptable human exposure level. \u201cPut 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,\u201d Chen wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That means that even if the hazard level were 4 mg\/L \u2014 well above the 1.5 mg\/L identified by the NTP \u2014 the safe level of fluoride exposure would be 0.4 mg\/L, well below the current \u201coptimal\u201d fluoride level in the U.S., Chen wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The much lower probable hazard level established by high-quality studies indicates that many pregnant women in the U.S. are already exposed to fluoride in water at levels exceeding the hazard level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUnder even the most conservative estimates of this level, there is not enough of a margin between the accepted hazard level and the actual human exposure levels to find that fluoride is safe,\u201d Chen concluded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSimply put, the risk to health at exposure levels in United States drinking water is sufficiently high to trigger regulatory response by the EPA under Amended TSCA.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The law dictates that the EPA must take regulatory action, but it does not specify what that action has to be. EPA regulatory actions can range from notifying the public of risks to banning chemicals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Philippe Grandjean, M.D., Ph.D<\/a>., adjunct professor in environmental health at Harvard and chair of environmental medicine at the University of Southern Denmark, top researcher on fluoride\u2019s neurotoxicity<\/a> and expert witness for plaintiffs in the case told The Defender<\/a> he thought the court\u2019s decision was \u201cwell-justified.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said the ruling made it incumbent on the EPA to go beyond simply ending water fluoridation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEPA will have to consider what to do in the southwestern parts of the country where the fluoride content of groundwater is too high due to minerals in the soil containing fluoride,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd then there is the question about ingestion of toothpaste.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The CDC and the ADA did not immediately respond to The Defender\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than 70 years of controversy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For more than seven decades, U.S. public health officials have steadfastly supported water fluoridation<\/a>, claiming the practice is a key strategy for maintaining and improving dental health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Proponents of water fluoridation, with help from the mainstream press, often attempted to cast those questioning fluoride\u2019s benefits<\/a> and raising concerns about its safety as conspiracy theorists<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The EPA in 1975 recommended adding fluoride to water at an optimal level of 1.2 mg\/L for its dental benefits, but recommended a maximum level of 4 mg\/L, the ruling said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As more evidence has emerged about fluoride\u2019s adverse health effects<\/a>, including skeletal fluorosis, recommended levels were revised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Surgeon General Vivek Murthy<\/a>, officially lowered the recommended dosage for water fluoridation in 2015 from 0.7-1.2 mg\/L to 0.7 mg\/L after considering \u201cadverse health effects<\/a>\u201d along with alleged benefits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, evidence that fluoride poses a neurotoxic risk has existed for decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2017, after the EPA rejected their citizen petition<\/a> to end fluoridation of drinking water<\/a> in the U.S. based on evidence of health risks, namely neurotoxicity, the plaintiffs filed the lawsuit<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A seven-day trial took place in federal court in San Francisco in June 2020, but Chen put the proceedings on hold<\/a> pending the release of the NTP\u2019s systematic review of research available on the neurotoxic effects of fluoride.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The NTP sought to publish its report \u2014 which consisted of a \u201cstate of the science\u201d monograph and a meta-analysis \u2014 in May 2022, but dental officials at the CDC and the National Institutes of Health National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research<\/a> pressured HHS Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine<\/a> to prevent the review from being published.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ADA also sought to suppress<\/a> the report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Levine told the NTP to not publish the report but to put it on hold and allow for further review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plaintiffs submitted documents<\/a> obtained via the Freedom of Information Act exposing this intervention to the court. The revelation prompted Chen to rule that the trial should go forward using the draft report from the NTP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The trial resumed in January in San Francisco, with arguments presented over the course of two weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The NTP\u2019s monograph was finalized and published<\/a> last month on its website. The meta-analysis is forthcoming in a peer-reviewed journal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Connett said that Congress created the citizen petition provision in TSCA as a counterweight to bureaucratic lethargy and as a check on the EPA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The statute, he said, is a powerful tool for overcoming politicized science.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen science becomes fossilized in political inertia, the citizen petition provision of TSCA is a very powerful tool for citizens,\u201d Connett said. \u201cThrough this case, we have been able to, I think we\u2019ve been able to effectuate what Congress had envisioned with this part of the statute.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let’s hope this puts an end to them putting fluoride in our water. Though, this is not the only problem with our water and why you should be using some type of filtration on tap water. I have a post on filtering water with links to see test results for your local water, along with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","category-world"],"blocksy_meta":[],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Jason","author_link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/author\/jturning\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8635"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8636,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8635\/revisions\/8636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}