HHS will review guidance on the addition of fluoride to drinking water
The Department of Health and Human Services is directing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to make new recommendations on the addition of fluoride to U.S. water sources. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has blamed the fluoridation of water for a number of health problems.
The agency is directing the CDC to reconvene an independent panel of 15 health experts to examine the role fluoride plays in water sources and whether it can be detrimental to public health, Kennedy told The Associated Press earlier this week, and NPR has confirmed.
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin also said his agency would review scientific evidence regarding the health outcomes of the consumption of fluoridated water to determine its safety.
“Without prejudging any outcomes, when this evaluation is completed, we will have an updated foundational scientific evaluation that will inform the agency’s future steps to meet statutory obligations under the Safe Drinking Water Act,” Zeldin said.
The EPA is in charge of ensuring drinking water quality in the United States.
Kennedy has erroneously called fluoride “an industrial waste” and blamed its addition in drinking water on health issues including arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders and thyroid disease. Health experts widely agree that fluoride — a common, naturally occurring mineral — at regulated levels is a major benefit to public health.
The United States first began adding fluoride to community water supplies in 1945, after a survey showed the mineral was effective in helping reduce dental cavities in children. In 1962, the U.S. Public Health Service recommended the addition of fluoride to sources of public drinking water.
Alongside successes like vaccinations and the reduction of car crash fatalities, community water fluoridation has been hailed as one of the greatest public health achievements of the 20th century, having saved millions of Americans from costly and painful dental procedures. The CDC says it has reduced cavities by some 25%.
The addition of fluoride is not a federal regulation, but recommendations from the CDC could influence state local governments to stop their fluoridation programs.
Already, Utah’s Republican-controlled legislature has passed a bill that bans the addition of fluoride to the state’s public water sources.
Kennedy’s desire to see fluoride removed from the public follows other controversial health stances from the HHS leader, who has been a leading voice in the debunked conspiracy theory that vaccines cause autism in children.
In outlining the agency’s plan, the HHS pointed to a study from the National Toxicology Program, which concluded with “moderate confidence” that there may be a connection between excess exposure to fluoride and lower IQ in children.
The study, however, was based on an exposure to drinking water containing at least 1.5 milligrams of fluoride per liter — more than twice the 0.7 milligrams per liter in the U.S. water supply.
While water fluoridation has long sparked controversy over its health concerns, experts say that there are clear benefits to its inclusion, particularly in communities where dental care is scarce.
In Calgary, Canada, for example, the city council voted in 2011 to remove fluoride from its water supply. Last year, they decided to reverse course after a study showed a significant increase in dental cavities in children.
The American Dental Association warned that fluoride cessation in the United States based on conspiracy theories would be a mistake.
“The growing distrust of credible, time-tested, evidence-based science is disheartening,” ADA President Brett Kessler said in a statement. “The myths that fluoridated water is harmful and no longer necessary to prevent dental disease is troublesome and reminds me of fictional plots from old movies like Dr. Strangelove” — referring to the 1964 Stanley Kubrick film that mocked conspiracy theories of the time that linked fluoride with communism.
“When government officials, like Secretary Kennedy, stand behind the commentary of misinformation and distrust peer-reviewed research it is injurious to public health,” he said, calling for a comprehensive study of fluoride in water.
A statement from the White House this week dismissed media reports that pointed out the importance of fluoride in preventing tooth decay, saying that reports of Kennedy’s call for a new review on fluoride were a “thinly veiled attempt to falsely portray the Trump Administration as anti-science and anti-health.”
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