Judge Orders EPA to Address Potential Risk of Fluoride in Drinking Water

A federal judge in California on Sept. 25 ordered the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to strengthen its rules around fluoride in drinking water, writing that the compound could pose a risk to children’s intellectual development.
In August, the federal National Toxicology Program found that there is a link between higher amounts of fluoride exposure and a lower IQ in children, potentially upending the longstanding practice of adding it to tap water to prevent tooth decay. The agency based its conclusion on studies involving fluoride levels at about twice the recommended limit for drinking water.
On Sept. 24, Chen sided with several advocacy groups that filed a lawsuit against the EPA, which had argued that it wasn’t clear what effect fluoride exposure might have at lower levels. However, the federal agency is required to make sure there is a margin between the hazard level and exposure level.
“If there is an insufficient margin, then the chemical poses a risk,” he wrote.
“Simply put, the risk to health at exposure levels in United States drinking water is sufficiently high to trigger regulatory response by the EPA” under federal law, according to Chen.
He said that “scientific literature in the record provides a high level of certainty that a hazard is present” and that “fluoride is associated with reduced IQ.”
Chen stressed that his ruling does not stipulate that fluoridated water can cause lower IQ in children with certainty but is only weighing the potential risk.
“This order does not dictate precisely what that response must be,” the judge said.
“This review finds, with moderate confidence, that higher estimated fluoride exposures … are consistently associated with lower IQ in children,” the report reads.
There is also evidence that exposure “is associated with other neurodevelopmental and cognitive effects in children,” it found, but it stressed that “there is low confidence in the literature for these other effects.”
The court case, which was brought in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco, began in 2017. The lead plaintiff was the nonprofit environmental advocacy organization Food & Water Watch.
Chen had paused the proceedings in 2020 to await the results of the National Toxicology Program report before releasing his opinion.
“The American Dental Association endorses community water fluoridation as a safe, beneficial, and cost-effective public health measure for preventing dental caries,” it stated.
The Epoch Times contacted EPA officials for comment on Sept. 25 but didn’t receive a reply by publication time.