PESHTIGO – Peshtigo native Brenda Staudenmaier’s September email to the City of Peshtigo about the growing body of research showing fluoride is more toxic than most people realize is prompting the city’s Water Committee to take a closer look at the research.
The city’s water utility adds a small amount of fluoride and has for years, Mayor Katie Berman said. Complaints have been almost nonexistent, she said.
“In the four years that I’ve been involved, I have not heard of it once,” said Berman, who was an alderperson before becoming mayor. “I haven’t seen anything at city council meetings about fluoride.”
Staudenmaier, a Peshtigo native involved in litigation accusing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency of breaching the public trust by ignoring a growing body of research linking fluoride to adverse health effects, including lower IQ levels and higher incidences of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity
Disorder in children, recently returned to her hometown and spoke before the Water Committee.
Staudenmaier and opponents of fluoride claim state and national government health agencies haven’t kept up with new research on fluoride’s adverse health effects.
With the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency having ignored petitions from citizens concerned about fluoride’s adverse effects, a federal judge ordered the agency to take action on Sept. 24. Judge Edward Chen agreed with Food & Water Watch, Staudenmaier and other plantiffs that under the Toxic Substances Control Act, the EPA owes them a regulatory response to their concerns about the toxicity of fluoride used in public drinking water systems.
After reviewing a large body of scientific research, Chen determined fluoridation at 0.7 milligrams per liter, a level many governments use for municipal water, poses “an unreasonable risk of reduced IQ in children.”
He citied the National Research Council’s 2006 conclusion that fluoride can interfere with brain functions and over 300 peer-reviewed studies supporting this conclusion. Among the research conducted in the past 10 years are numerous studies linking fluoride with cognitive impairments. Connett said the United States is far behind Europe in acknowledging the neurotoxicity of fluoride, and notes it makes a list of the Top 12 substances, like PCBs, mercury and other poisons to be avoided.
While Staudenmaier informed the Water Committee of the new research, she said the Peshtigo Water Committee also received information from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services Oral Health Unit Supervisor Robbyn Kuester, suggesting, “Current evidence has found the level of fluoride used in community water fluoridation is a safe, effective and well-tested public health program.” A note from Kuester wasn’t dated, but it was distributed with a fact sheet from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with information from 2001 and 2013, which Staudenmaier said wasn’t current. It included this statement:
“No convincing scientific evidence has been found linking community water fluoridation (CWF) with any potential adverse health effect or systemic disorder such as an increased risk for cancer, Down syndrome, heart disease, osteoporosis and bone fracture, immune disorders, low intelligence, renal disorders, Alzheimer’s disease or allergic reactions.” Judge Chen’s judgment disputes this.
The fact sheet continues: “Documented risks of CWF are limited to dental fluorosis, a change in dental enamel that is primarily cosmetic in its most common form.”
Staudenmaier and opponents of fluoride claim state and national government health agencies haven’t kept up with new research on fluoride’s adverse health effects.
In Peshtigo, the Water Committee is taking the month of October to review it, Berman said. “They will make a decision on how they want to handle it moving forward and will make a recommendation to the council,” she said. “The guys wanted to consult with the DNR,” she said.
The longer it takes, the more frustrating it becomes for proponents of fluoride-free water because mounting scientific research indicates fluoridation is unsafe at approved levels, Staudenmaier said.
The research persuaded Judge Chen to order the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to go back and reconsider whether fluoride should be added to municipal water.
Attorney Michael Connett, who represented Staudenmaier and other plaintiffs, asked the federal court to start with a clean slate and review the new scientific research without considering the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Water’s position that fluoridation provides benefits to cavity prevention and is safe for human consumption.
The request for this de novo procedure made the difference, he said. By basing the complaint, brought by a number of water organizations and several individual plaintiffs, including Staudenmaier, on the Toxic Substance Control Act, Connett said the plaintiffs he represented were allowed to ask the court to look at the evidence from an independent perspective. According to the EPA’s Office of Water, fluoride is a “contaminant” considered safe at a level of 4 parts per million.
“We wanted to have the concerns about fluoride be heard through an independent forum by someone with no skin in the game, and that’s what we were able to do in this lawsuit is have the evidence considered by an independent decision-maker where politics played no role whatsoever,” Connett said.
Concerns about fluoride’s adverse effects aren’t new, he said. In 2006, the National Research Council, which is part of National Academy of Sciences, completed a three year review of the scientific literature on fluoride and the NRC concluded the “safe drinking water level for fluoride , of 4 parts per million is too high.
“That was the expert conclusion of the National Research Council in 2006,” Connett said. “And yet as we sit here in 2024, the EPA has done nothing to that water standard.”
While research about fluoride’s adverse effects on bones, including a higher incidence of bone fracture and osteoarthritis has existed for decades, a growing body of research claims it also affects the brain. “What the data suggests is fluorinated exposure does bring down IQs across the spectrum,” Connett said.
It’s also been linked to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Level in children. “There’s certainly studies that have linked fluoride with ADHD in children,” Connett said, though he claims there are fewer ADHD studies because it’s less studied. IQ tests are plentiful, and they provide the data linking fluoride to neurological issues, he said.
“The IQ loss is disturbing,” Connett said. “It is the health concern for which we have the greatest amount of high quality data.”
It often does take years and years to influence change, even when it seems obvious in hindsight, Connett said. “The same thing can be said about leaded gasoline, which was a nationwide practice in the United States until the 1980s,” he said.
Despite the passion people like Staudenmaier have for fluoride-free drinking water systems, convincing governments from local municipalities to the federal environmental and health agencies to switch their thinking and their practices isn’t easy.
“For too long, federal health agencies have seen their job as promoting fluoride rather than investigating fluoride and rather than being a neutral empire on the risks and benefits of fluoride,” Connett said.
Behind the politics that Connett said has colored the Office of Water’s decision-making on safe levels of fluoride is a strong lobby by fluoride makers and dental associations.
“When we started fluoridation in the 1940s, this was supposed to be about the teeth and the teeth alone; neurotoxicity wasn’t part of the equation,” Connett said.
A lot has changed since then, including the amount of fluoride contained in products besides water. However, national dental associations and state and federal health agencies haven’t adjusted their policies.
“The federal health agencies have basically performed the role of cheerleaders on the fluoride issue, not as impartial scientists,” Connett claimed. It’s also become a politicized issue, he said.
“We wanted to get out of that political deadlock we have in Washington on this issue and get it into independent forum, and that’s what this citizen petition allowed us to do,” he said.
The EPA has 60 days from Sept. 24 to appeal the U.S. District Court’s order mandating the EPA reconsider the toxicity of fluoride, he said.
According to an Oct. 10 EPA statement, the agency and the Department of Justice are considering options for appealing Judge Chen’s landmark ruling that fluoridation poses “unreasonable risk” under Toxic Substance Control Act.
“The government is reviewing the record of these proceedings and determining whether to seek appellate review,” the EPA said.
Original article online at: https://peshtigotimes.com/stories/new-fluoride-research-spurs-local-reaction,192943