NEW YORK — A federal judge has ordered US Environmental Protection Agency to further regulate the fluoride content in drinking water, as high concentrations could pose a risk to the mental development of kids.
U.S. District Judge Edward Chen warned that it just isn’t certain that the quantity of fluoride typically added to water results in lower IQs in children. But he concluded that a growing body of research suggests this might pose a disproportionate risk. He ordered the EPA to take motion to cut back that risk, but didn’t say what those actions could be.
It is the primary time a federal judge has made a call on the neurodevelopmental risks to children posed by beneficial fluoride levels in U.S. water, said Ashley Malin, a researcher on the University of Florida who has studied the consequences of upper fluoride levels in pregnant women.
She called it “the most historic ruling in the fluoridation debate in the United States that we have ever seen.”
The judge's ruling is one other notable contradiction to a practice that is taken into account certainly one of the best achievements in public health of the last century. Fluoride strengthens teeth and reduces tooth decay by replacing minerals lost through normal wear and tear, in line with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Last month, a federal agency found “with moderate certainty” that there’s a link between higher fluoride exposure and lower IQ in children. The National Toxicology Program based its conclusion on studies using fluoride levels about twice the beneficial limit for drinking water.
The EPA – certainly one of the defendants within the case – argued that it just isn’t clear what effects fluoride exposures at lower concentrations might need. But the agency has an obligation to be certain that there may be some margin between hazard levels and exposure levels. And “if that margin is insufficient, the chemical poses a risk,” Chen wrote in his 80-page ruling on Tuesday.
“Simply put, the health risk at levels of contamination in U.S. drinking water is sufficiently high to trigger EPA regulatory action under federal law,” he wrote.
An EPA spokesman, Jeff Landis, said the agency was reviewing the choice but declined to comment further.
In 1950, federal agencies endorsed water fluoridation to stop tooth decay and continued to advertise even after fluoridated toothpaste got here onto the market a couple of years later.
Fluoride can come from quite a few sources, but Drinking water is the fundamental source for Americanssay researchers. According to CDC data, nearly two-thirds of the US population currently receives fluoridated drinking water.
Since 2015, federal health authorities have beneficial a fluoridation level of 0.7 milligrams per liter of water. Five a long time earlier, the beneficial maximum level was 1.2. The World Health Organization has set a protected limit for fluoride in drinking water at 1.5.
In addition, the EPA has long required that water systems contain not more than 4 milligrams of fluoride per liter of water. This limit is meant to stop skeletal fluorosis, a potentially debilitating disease that causes weaker bones, stiffness and pain.
The trial, which took place in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, began in 2017. The lead plaintiff was an environmental nonprofit called Food & Water Watch. Chen paused proceedings in 2020 to await the outcomes of the National Toxicology Program report, but heard lawyers' arguments within the case earlier this 12 months.
“In our view, the only effective way to eliminate the risk posed by adding fluoride chemicals to water is to stop adding them,” Michael Connett, lead attorney for the plaintiffs, said in an email Thursday.
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