'Optimal' level of fluoride in water poses lower IQ risk for kids, judge rules

(CN) — A federal judge on Tuesday ruled that the current level of fluoride in water considered “optimal” by the Environmental Protection Agency is too high, and that it “poses an unreasonable risk of reduced IQ in children.”

“It should be noted that this finding does not conclude with certainty that fluoridated water is injurious to public health,” U.S. District Judge Edward Chen added in his 80-page ruling, but “there is an unreasonable risk of such injury, a risk sufficient to require the EPA to engage with a regulatory response.”

Chen did not say what that response should be, only that the EPA must not ignore it.

The ruling stems from a lawsuit brought by the nonprofit Food & Water Watch, which praised Chen’s findings.

“Today’s ruling represents an important acknowledgement of a large and growing body of science indicating serious human health risks associated with fluoridated drinking water," said Food & Water Watch executive director Wenonah Hauter in a statement. “This court looked at the science and acted accordingly. Now the EPA must respond by implementing new regulations that adequately protect all Americans — especially our most vulnerable infants and children — from this known health threat.”

Cities in the United States began adding fluoride to their water supplies in 1950s, after research showed it would prevent cavities and pose no other health risks. By 1960, the policy was widespread, if not entirely without controversy. Conspiracy theorists have blamed water fluoridation for everything from AIDS to cancer to the spread of communism — a view parodied in the 1964 film, “Dr. Strangelove,” in which a character calls fluoridation “the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face.” According to Food & Water Watch, three-quarters of the population — more than 200 million Americans — drink fluoridated water.

In 1975, the EPA recommended that local jurisdictions add fluoride to their water supplies for the dental benefits, and set an optimal level of 1.2 milligrams per liter, with a maximum of 4 mg/L. During the 1980s, researchers began to link too much fluoride with a number of adverse effects, including osteosclerosis. In 2006, the EPA lowered its recommended level to 0.7 mg/L.

“However, scientific evidence has increasingly identified a link between fluoride exposure and adverse cognitive effects in children (reduced IQ),” Chen wrote in his ruling.

Food & Water Watch filed a petition with the EPA to consider whether drinking fluoride “presents an unreasonable risk of injury to human health,” but the EPA denied the petition — “notwithstanding the growing and robust body of evidence indicating an association between fluoride intake and cognitive impairment in children,” Chen wrote. The nonprofit then filed a suit challenging the agency’s decision.

“There is little dispute in this suit as to whether fluoride poses a hazard to human health,” Chen wrote. “Indeed, EPA’s own expert agrees that fluoride is hazardous at some level of exposure. And ample evidence establishes that a mother’s exposure to fluoride during pregnancy is associated with IQ decrements in her offspring.”

Chen’s ruling is not that 0.7 mg/L of fluoride in water lowers ones IQ. Rather, he found that the margin between the levels of fluoride currently in U.S. drinking water and the level at which the chemical is hazardous is too small to ensure safety.

“Simply put, the risk to health at exposure levels in United States drinking water is sufficiently high to trigger regulatory response by the EPA,” Chen wrote.

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