NEW YORK (AP) — Fluoride in drinking water poses a risk to the intellectual development of children, and U.S. environmental regulators need to address it, a federal judge in California has ruled.
U.S. District Judge Edward Chen cautioned that it’s not certain that the amount of fluoride typically added to water is causing lower IQ in kids, but he concluded that mounting research points to an unreasonable risk that it could be.
He ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to take steps to lower that risk, but didn’t say what those measures should be. The judge’s ruling is another striking dissent to a practice that has been hailed as one of the greatest public health achievements of the last century. Fluoride strengthens teeth and reduces cavities by , according to the U.
S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Last month, a federal agency “with moderate confidence” that there is a link between higher levels of fluoride exposure and lower IQ in kids.
The National Toxicology Program based its conclusion on studies involving fluoride levels at about twice the recommended limit for drinking water. The EPA — a defendant in the lawsuit — argued that it wasn’t clear what impact fluoride exposure might have at lower levels. But the agency is required to make sure there is a margin between the hazard level and exposure level.
And “if there is an insufficient margin, then the chemical poses a risk,” Chen wrote in his 80-page ruling Tuesday. “Simply put, .