LAW 360. EXCERPT. … “I don’t need stuff repeated for the dramatics,” he said. “I don’t need the Perry Mason moments – I just need to get to the issues. So use your time wisely.”
U.S. District Judge Edward Chen’s comments came before the start of the fifth day of a two-week bench trial in San Francisco in high-stakes litigation launched by Food & Water Watch Inc., the Fluoride Action Network and others against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2017.
The groups seek to force the EPA to make a new federal rule under the Toxic Substances Control Act that would ban fluoride from being added to drinking water.
Before the trial resumed, Judge Chen also agreed to allow the parties to examine witnesses on the “late breaking development,” the new Canadian fluoride study.
… Trial resumed then with the EPA finishing the cross-examination of the plaintiffs’ risk assessment expert, Kathleen Thiessen, who co-wrote the National Research Council’s 2006 report “Fluoride in Drinking Water: A Scientific Review of EPA’s Standards.”
… [Thiessen] acknowledged that there isn’t an equation that fits perfectly with the fluoride exposure and an IQ drop, but she said repeatedly there is a statistically significant relationship.
“I don’t think that you can say categorically that there is no risk,” she said.
… After Thiessen’s examination …the EPA called the first defense witness, Brown University professor of epidemiology David Savitz, who recently participated in a Canadian health panel reviewing the latest scientific studies on the potential effects of fluoride exposure.
During his direct examination, Savitz testified that there’s too much uncertainty in the scientific data on the neurocognitive impacts of fluoride exposure from water, which typically has 0.7 mg/L of fluoride, and it would be premature to regulate fluoridated water based on its potential neurotoxicity.
… Savitz also said he doubted the efficacy of testing urine for fluoride, and he suggested a better analysis would be to look at an individual’s fluoride consumption…
Original article online at https://www.law360.com/articles/1795252
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