Adding fluoride to drinking water poses such a sufficient risk of lowering children’s IQ that the EPA must respond in some regulatory way, a federal court has ruled.
“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 senior Judge Edward M. Chen with the US District Court for the Northern District of California on Tuesday.
Some kind of Environmental Protection Agency response is needed, because adding 0.7 milligrams per liter (mg/L) of fluoride to drinking water—the level presently recommended by US health agencies—is too risky, Chen said.
“It should be noted that this finding does not conclude with certainty that fluoridated water is injurious to public health,” Chen said. But, the EPA must examine the mineral’s harmful potential and decide how to respond.
“This order does not dictate precisely what that response must be,” Chen said. That remains the EPA’s decision under the 2016 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) amendments, he said. But, “one thing the EPA cannot do, however, in the face of this Court’s finding, is to ignore that risk.”
‘Vast’ Population Exposed
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, the federal government’s primary scientific advisory institute, recommended in 2006 that the EPA lower its enforceable maximum contaminant limit (MCL) of 4 mg/L of fluoride in drinking water to protect children. And the agency announced in 2011 that it would initiate a review of that limit. But, the MCL and non-enforceable public health goal, or maximum contaminant level goal (MCLG) remain 4 mg/L.
Groups led by Food & Water Watch and the Fluoride Action Network had sued the EPA after the agency denied a petition to outlaw the 75-year-old practice of adding fluoride to drinking water to prevent cavities, arguing it is an unreasonable public health danger due to scientific studies that fluoride lowers babies’ IQs.
The size of the population exposed to fluoride in drinking water “is vast,” Chen said. “Approximately two million pregnant women, and over 300,000 exclusively formula-fed babies are exposed,” he said. That number far exceeds the population size the EPA has used as it determined whether regulatory action was warranted in other risk evaluations, he said. “EPA has found risks unreasonable where the population impacted was less than 500 people.”
Yet, Chen previously ruled TSCA doesn’t allow the benefits of a chemical to be considered as the EPA decides whether that chemical poses an unreasonable health risk. The agency considers a chemical’s benefits, the cost of regulation, and other information as it decides how to regulate the substance.
“There is little dispute that there is a statistically significant association between IQ decrements in children and fluoride concentration levels at 4 mg/L,” Chen said.
Even “the ‘optimal’ water fluoridation level in the United States of 0.7 mg/L is nearly double that safe level of 0.4 mg/L for pregnant women and their offspring,” he said, referring to the large amount of scientific data he reviewed and questioned attorneys about during the litigation that began in 2017.
Dentists, water utilities, and chemical policy attorneys are among the groups that have tracked this case, which was enabled by a provision of the TSCA amendments that gave courts the obligation to determine—without deference to the EPA—whether a chemical poses an unreasonable risk. That provision applies to situations where the EPA has denied a citizens’ petition to take action based on a chemical’s unreasonable risks.
“The Court has done what EPA has long refused to do: applied EPA’s risk assessment framework to fluoride,” said Michael Connett, a partner with Siri & Glimstad LLP, which together with Nidel and Nace PLLC and Waters Kraus & Paul LLP represent the lead plaintiff, Food & Water Watch. “It’s an historic decision. And, as we await EPA’s rulemaking proceeding, policymakers would be well advised to ask: should we really be adding a neurotoxicant to our drinking water?”
The case is Food & Water Watch, Inc. v. EPA, N.D. Cal., No. 17-cv-02162, 9/24/24.
(Updated throughout with additional reporting.)
Original article online at: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/environment-and-energy/epa-must-reduce-fluorides-risks-to-childrens-iq-court-says