A federal court has denied an attempt by the Environmental Protection Agency to dismiss a lawsuit that is set to end water fluoridation in the US for good.
The massive victory from anti-water fluoridation groups saw the judge in the Northern District of California deny the Environmental Protection Agency any attempt to limit the information that was available to the court while the decision was being made to ban water fluoridation or not.
Food and Water Watch Inc. filed the historic lawsuit along with a coalition between health organization fight against water fluoridation.
Under section 21 of The Toxic Substances, Control Act (TSCA), US citizens are allowed to petition the EPA to regulate or ban certain chemicals.
When the EPA rejected a citizen petition calling for them to ban water fluoridation, Food and Water Watch promptly filed the lawsuit.
As the lawsuit continued, the EPA translated the language of the law to imply the judge must limit reviewing the information the EPA supplied when it chose to decline the petition on February 17, 2017.
“The argument is whether, in reaching its own decision, the court can think about details that the EPA did not have access to an e.g. expert statement, brand-new research studies, documents gotten in discovery, and so on,” Michael Connett, the attorney representing the union told Bloomberg Environment before the ruling.
National Law Review reported on the judgment:
In rejecting the EPA’s motion, the court specifically held that the expression “de novo proceeding” suggests that Congress planned a broad scope of evaluation due to the fact that the word “proceeding” incorporates all routine activities of a suit.
This refers to the discovery beyond the administrative record. Because the function of the TSCA is to protect the public from chemicals that present unnecessary risks on peoples health and the environment, the court held that” [a] de novo proceeding in district court imitated traditional trial-like proceedings would not conflict with the function of the TSCA, however, would rather effectuate it.”
The court’s ruling indicates that the trial will now have larger ramifications for the legality of water fluoridation.
If the union of fluoride challengers achieves success in their claim, the EPA may be required to reassess the petition to ban water fluoridation.
Exactly what is water fluoridation?
The compounds contributed to municipal water materials understood by the name fluoride are really a mix of unpurified by-products of phosphate mining.
In the United States, thousands of tons of fluorosilicic acid is recovered from phosphoric acid plants then used for water fluoridation.
During this procedure, the fluoride ion is developed.
This procedure of taking waste from the phosphate market and putting it into drinking water has long been slammed for its effects on human health and the environment.
It is popular that water fluoridation has caused oral fluorosis for millions of kids.
This discoloring of the teeth was called “cosmetically objectionable” by the Centers for Disease Control.
Beyond the cosmetic impact, there have been numerous research studies suggesting frustrating health concerns related to fluoride, particularly for kids.
Another research study found a connection in between direct exposure to water fluoridated at reasonably low concentrations and a decreased IQ among children.
As recent as September 2017 the journal Environmental Health Perspectives published the study “Prenatal Fluoride Exposure and Cognitive Outcomes in Children at 4 and 6– 12 Years of Age in Mexico,” examining the results of prenatal direct exposure to fluoride and the potential health concerns.
The researchers called the research study “one of the first and biggest longitudinal epidemiological studies to exist that either deal with the association of early life direct exposure to fluoride to childhood intelligence or study the association of fluoride and cognition utilizing private biomarker of fluoride exposure.”
The study was moneyed in part by the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
The scientists found that higher prenatal was associated with lower scores on tests for cognitive function at age four, and between ages six and twelve.
The researchers acknowledge that their results are “rather consistent” with previous environmental research studies which show children living in locations of high fluoride direct exposure have decreased IQ scores compared to those in areas of low exposure.
According to a study published in the journal General Dentistry, infants are in danger of oral fluorosis due to overexposure to fluoride in commercially offered baby foods.
The researchers examined 360 different samples of 20 various foods varying from fruits and vegetables, chicken, turkey, beef, and vegetarian suppers.
Chicken products had the greatest concentrations of fluoride, followed by turkey. The New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation (NYSCOF) reports that the fluoride levels were due to pesticides, fertilizers, soil, groundwater, and/or fluoridated water.
The high levels found in the chicken and turkey can be attributed to “fluoride-saturated bone dust” involved in the process of mechanically separating the meat.
Another research study released in Environmental Health discovered a potential connection between fluoride direct exposure and the occurrence of adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in kids.
The researchers studied information on ADHD among kids age 4 to seventeen collected in 2003, 2007 and 2011 as part of the National Survey of Children’s Health, as well as state water fluoridation information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) gathered in between 1992 and 2008.
It is the first study to examine the relationship in between exposure to fluoridated water and ADHD occurrence.
The team found that children residing in locations with a bulk of the population receiving fluoridated water from public water supply “had the tendency to have a greater proportion of kids and teenagers detected with ADHD.” The scientists concluded that:
This study has actually empirically shown an association between more extensive exposure to fluoridated water and increased ADHD occurrence in U.S. children and teenagers, even after controlling for socioeconomic status (SES).
The findings suggest that fluoridated water may be an environmental danger aspect for ADHD.
In addition to these studies related to fluoride and children, lots of other research studies have actually indicated a variety of illness.
A current research study published in the Journal of Analytical Chemistry suggests that fluoride ions discovered in fluoridated water and toothpaste might lead to a boost in Urinary Stone Disease (USD).
The research study was performed by chemists from Russia and Australia, led by Pavel Nesterenko at the University of Tasmania.
The group studied 20 urinary stones from patients at a Russian hospital and found fluoride ions in 80% of the stones.
This could be due to high levels of fluoride in clients’ urine, perhaps from drinking water consisting of fluorides and ingesting fluoride toothpaste.
A study released in the BMJ’s Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health confirmed fluoride’s unfavorable result on the thyroid gland and a possible connection to anxiety, weight gain, and other negative health results.
Researchers with the University of Kent in England took a look at thyroid activity for those in locations with fluoridated water and those without.
The group analyzed 95 percent of the English population in 2012 and 2013 and found that high rates of underactive thyroid were 30% more likely in areas with high fluoride concentration.
An underactive thyroid can lead to depression, weight gain, fatigue and hurting muscles.
