Fluoride on Trial

March 5, 2024

https://anh-usa.org/fluoride-on-trial/

Fluoride on Trial

By ANH-USAOn 
Fluoride on Trial
Will the EPA be compelled by a federal court to end the dangerous fluoridation of drinking water?

THE TOPLINE

  • A federal court will decide, in a few weeks time, whether the EPA needs to stop allowing the fluoridation of water.
  • Fluoride exposure has been linked to neurological effects and a host of other bad health outcomes.
  • Fluoridation is not only dangerous for your health, it is unnecessary.

Groups suing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over the fluoridation of American drinking water are now awaiting a decision from a federal court after the trial ended last week. The basis of the suit was the EPA’s rejection of the groups’ Citizens Petition calling on the agency to end the addition of fluoridation chemicals into drinking water due to fluoride’s neurotoxicity. It’s high time fluoridation ceases, as numerous studies have linked fluoride exposure with lower IQ and other health problems.

Substantial evidence links elevated fluoride levels with neurological effects, especially lower IQ. Fluoride also accumulates in the body, including in the pineal gland, other endocrine organs and the skeletal system. Continued exposure is known to disrupt calcium and vitamin D metabolism and contributes to calcification in tissues and blood vessels. A National Research Council (NRC) report from 2006 concluded that the EPA’s standard for fluoride in drinking water is unsafe and should be lowered. The report highlighted damage that can be done to the teeth, bones, brain, endocrine system, thyroid, and pineal gland—all from drinking fluoride. In 2014, fluoride was added to the list of chemicals “known to cause developmental neurotoxicity in human beings” in a review published by Lancet Neurology; only 12 chemicals are on this list.

According to the Citizen’s Petition filed by the Fluoride Action Network, Organic Consumers Association, Food & Water Watch, and others, in the years since that 2006 NRC report, there have been dozens of human studies looking at fluoride’s effect on cognition, with all but a few (46 out of 54) finding statistically significant associations between fluoride and cognitive deficits; three studies since 2006 have found adverse effects on the fetal brain.

Fluoride has been added to drinking water in towns across the United States since 1945 for the purpose of improving dental health. Now, 66% of people in the US receive drinking water with added fluoride.

Even if there weren’t any safety concerns with drinking fluoride, there would still be the question of whether we need to do it in the first place. The world is different than it was 100 years ago, especially when it comes to dental health. Most of us use toothpaste, and many people use fluoridated toothpaste, making fluoride in water unnecessary. Other parts of the world that do not fluoridate their water, like Western Europe, have seen dental decay rates decline just as much as they have in the US.

Fluoride is typically delivered as sodium monofluorophosphate or sodium fluoride in dental products and as fluorosilicic acid (a by-product of fertilizer manufacturing) in municipal water. These are chemical forms that are not found in nature and as such, behave very differently in our bodies. You can read more about integrative dental health here, here, and here.

We will keep you abreast of the court’s decision as we learn more. It’s unfortunate that an agency tasked with protecting us from pollutants must be sued in an effort to force it to do the right thing in the public interest. However, we are finding, repeatedly, this is par for the course when agencies are captured by the interests they are meant to regulate.

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Category:

Activism, Dentistry

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