Fluoride poses an unreasonable risk of reduced IQ in children, according to a U.S. federal court.

On Tuesday a federal court in California found that fluoridation of water at 0.7 milligram per liter “poses an unreasonable risk of reduced IQ in children”.

The new ruling issued by Judge Edward Chen noted that the finding does not “conclude with certainty” that fluoridated water is “injurious to public health” but does find there is “an unreasonable risk of such injury”. This risk is sufficient to require the EPA to enact a regulatory response, Chen wrote.

The decision is the latest ruling in an eight year legal battle between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Fluoride Action Network (FAN). The lawsuit began following the EPA’s 2016 decision to deny the plaintiff’s petition under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). The first phase of the trial took place in summer 2020 via Zoom and the second phase of the fluoride lawsuit concluded in February in San Francisco.

While Judge Chen does not tell the EPA what the response to the ruling should be, he did rule that the EPA cannot ignore the risk.

The EPA must now initiate a rulemaking process to determine what regulation they will implement to lower or eliminate the risk posed by water fluoridation. The EPA is likely to appeal the decision, but could also drag out the rulemaking process for years.

The Fluoride Action Network believes the most effective way to eliminate this risk is to end water fluoridation and ban the practice altogether.

“In our view, attempts by the EPA to appeal or delay this ruling will only result in harm to hundreds of thousands of additional children, particularly those whose families are unable to afford expensive reverse osmosis or distillation filtration of their tap water,” wrote Stuart Cooper, Executive Director for the Fluoride Action Network.

Judge Chen’s ruling includes several strong statements which make it clear his court has no doubt water fluoridation is causing harm, even at the levels currently recommend by U.S. health agencies. These statements conflict with the claims of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and lobbying groups like the American Dental Association.

“The Court finds that fluoridation of water at 0.7 milligrams per liter (“mg/L”) – the level presently considered “optimal” in the United States – poses an unreasonable risk of reduced IQ in children,” Chen wrote.

Chen goes on to note that “there is little dispute” regarding the hazard fluoride poses to human health.”Indeed, EPA’s own expert agrees that fluoride is hazardous at some level of exposure,” the judge acknowledges. “And ample evidence establishes that a mother’s exposure to fluoride during pregnancy is associated with IQ decrements in her offspring.”

Judge Chen’s statement regarding fluoride exposure during pregnancy reinforce statements made by multiple expert witnesses presented by the FAN during the trials.

One such witness was Dr. Howard Hu. In February, Hu told the court that babies in the 3rd trimester typically pull calcium from the mother’s bones as they develop their skeletal structure. If a mother is receiving fluoride this will be stored in her bones. When her child begins pulling minerals from the mother it will also receive fluoride via the placenta.

Following his testimony to the court, Dr. Howard Hu confirmed to TLAV that he believes fluoride is a neurotoxin.

“Yes. I would say that, in my view, the evidence is quite persuasive that there is a negative impact of fluoride exposure on the neurodevelopment of children, particularly the research that’s been coming out in prenatal exposure.”

 

Judge Chen acknowledged that there is uncertainty as to the precise level at which fluoride becomes hazardous. However, he also stated that even with this uncertainty “the risk to health at exposure levels in United States drinking water is sufficiently high to trigger regulatory response by the EPA under Amended TSCA”.

In response to the ruling, FAN’s attorney, Michael Connett, said, “The Court has done what EPA has long refused to do: applied EPA’s risk assessment framework to fluoride. It’s a historic decision.”

Connett also stated that while the EPA’s rulemaking process begins, policy makers ought to ask, “Should we really be adding a neurotoxicant to our drinking water?”

Censored Report From the NTP Released in August

The ruling comes on the heels of the release of a long-delayed and censored report from the U.S. National Toxicology Program.The NTP report found “moderate confidence” that fluoride exposure is “consistently associated with lower IQ in children”

The NTP is run by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to coordinate, evaluate, and report on toxicology within public agencies, and is headquartered at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS).

The NTP’s final report was a factor in Judge Chen’s ruling, with Chen writing, “notwithstanding inherent difficulties in observing effects at lower exposure levels… scientists have observed a statistically significant association between fluoride and adverse effects in children even at such “lower” exposure levels (less than 1.5 mg/L).”

The NTP’s final report, also known as a monograph, reported that 72 studies examined the “association between fluoride exposure and IQ in children,” and 64 of those studied found “an inverse relationship associated between estimated fluoride exposure and IQ in children.”

Of the total 72 studies, the NTP considered 19 of those studies to be “high quality”, and of those high quality studies, 18 “reported an inverse association between estimated fluoride exposure and IQ in children.”

Even among another 53 studies which were considered to be “low-quality” the NTP found that “46 of the 53 low-quality studies [88%] in children also found evidence of an inverse association between estimated fluoride exposure and IQ in children.”

The NTP report has been the source of controversy over the last couple years as it became clear that elements of the U.S. government were seeking to prevent its release.

Now that the final ruling from Judge Chen has been released, time will tell if local, state, and national governments outside of the United States listen to the rulings and warnings, or continue to ignore the scientific data and allow the poisoning of their own populations.