The Basics of the Fluoride Lawsuit
In November 2016 the Fluoride Action Network (FAN), along with Moms Against Fluoridation, Food & Water Watch, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine, the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology and the Organic Consumers Association submitted a Citizens Petition under Section 21 of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requesting a ban on the addition of fluoridation chemicals to water based on the evidence that fluoride is a neurotoxin at the doses currently used in communities around the US.
The argument is that water fluoridation violates the TSCA’s provision which prohibits the “particular use” of chemicals which have been found to present an unreasonable risk to the general public, and that the EPA should be regulating fluoride under this Act.
When the EPA denied their petition, they filed suit in the federal courts
CDC/NIH Controversy
In 2020 the fluoride lawsuit was put on hold while awaiting the release of a review of the research on fluoride by the NTP (National Toxicology Program) and the lowered IQ in children due to fluoride exposure.
Emails were released that revealed leadership within the CDC and NIH acted to prevent the release of the above review. The emails showed that Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine intervened to stop the release of the NTP review. The emails also confirmed the suspicions that government officials were preventing the release of this review to some extent.
“Every single time the NTP has released a monograph, every single time, it has released the draft monograph. Every single time. Now the government’s position is that when it’s fluoride, we will release it to the ADA but not the American people!” - FAN Attorney Michael Connett
In October 2022 the two year hold was ended, and it was ruled that the NTP review could be viewed in its unpublished form (it has since been made public).
The review found that higher fluoride exposure is consistently associated with lower IQ in children.
Kumar Controversy
The FAN revealed another controversy regarding emails obtained by Public Record Act requests. These emails showed California State Dental Director, Dr. Jayanth Kumar, attempting to downplay fluoride exposure and lower IQ data.
In an email from March 5, 2022 Honghu Liu, the study’s biostatistician, reported to Kumar that the results were “opposite of what we hoped for” as they failed to show a safe level of fluoride in water below which there is no association with reduced IQ.
He suggested trying different models to see if they could obtain different results: “although hard, we can test more models to try to identify a threshold that can lead to a non-significant fluctuation in IQ before the threshold and a significant drop in IQ after the threshold.”
The further analysis continued to produce the same results. Liu’s response: “…it is unfortunately not showing what we like to show.”
Kumar’s response on March 24, 2022 suggested removing the analysis “because it appears to contradict other findings.”
A month later, Kumar submitted the study for publication and the analysis showing the association between low-level fluoride and reduced IQ was gone. The study’s concluding statement read, "“These meta-analyses show that fluoride exposure relevant to community water fluoridation is not associated with lower IQ scores in children.”
Emails Source:
Other Controversies in the Fluoride Lawsuit
The EPA attempted to exclude three experts from speaking at the trial, but the court overruled and allowed the testimonies of:
Dr. Philippe Grandjean
Dr. Howard Hu
Dr. Bruce Lanphear
Week 1 expert witness, Dr. Grandjean, claimed he had been coerced by a colleague at the Harvard Dental School into signing a statement downplaying his study which claimed fluoride is a neurotoxin. The statement said the researchers still agreed with the CDC position that water fluoridation is safe.
He also stated that the “fluoride lobby” infiltrated a World Health Organization committee seeking to exclude any mention of harmful effects of fluoride. On the specific harmful effects of fluoride, Dr. Grandjean stated in his deposition that, “the weight of epidemiological evidence leaves no reasonable doubt that developmental neurotoxicity is a serious human health risk associated with elevated fluoride exposure.” Dr. Grandjean has also stated that efforts to control human fluoride exposure need to focus on pregnant women and small children.
EPA Witness - Dr. Savitz
Dr. David Savitz is a Professor of Epidemiology in the Brown University School of Public Health with extensive experience at NASEM (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine). He also served as editor at the American Journal of Epidemiology, and as a member of the Epidemiology and Disease Control study section of the National Institutes of Health. He was involved in the peer review of the NTP monograph on fluoride’s impact on neurodevelopment.
The EPA read the NASEM statement on the NTP conclusion… “the monograph falls short of providing a clear and convincing argument that supports its assessment.” And stated that the report “cannot be used to draw conclusions regarding low fluoride exposure concentrations, including those typically associated with drinking water fluoridation.” Dr. Savitz said he agreed with this conclusion.
During FAN’s cross examination, Michael Connett attempted to make it clear that Savitz is not, and was not, an expert in the neurotoxicity of fluoride while he reviewed the NTP report for NASEM. When asked if it would be accurate to call him a “newcomer” to this topic, he agreed. Connett also pulled up his deposition testimony where he said, “I would not say that I had done the necessary work” to be an expert on fluoride’s toxicity.
And when asked about a recent study (1) that found an association between fluoride and the cognitive ability for girls Savitz admitted that the study found a “statistically significant association” between fluoride exposure and impact on executive function.
EPA Witnessess: Dr. Barone & Ibarluzea
Dr. Stanley Barone is a Senior Science Policy Advisor with the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OSCPP) in the EPA. He was also involved in the first ten risk assessments conducted by the EPA under TSCA.
When asked for his expert opinion on the association between water fluoride levels and lower IQ, Barone said there was “a lot of uncertainty related to the epidemiological data” and “a lot of uncertainty for the NTP report.”
During cross examination, Connett asked if he agreed that fluoride has been found to be a neurotoxin at certain levels. Dr. Barone answered “yes,” but was less willing to detail specific levels.
This is where the biggest debate remains, both sides acknowledge fluoride’s harms, but cannot agree at which concentration level potential harm begins.
Dr. Barone did testify that there may be oversaturation going on in the kidney at the 95th percentile in certain fluoridated areas. When asked if he, as a risk assessor, felt comfortable exposing pregnant women to such a high level of fluoride he said, “no.”
The FAN presented documentation claiming that one of the EPA’s witnesses, Dr. Jesus Ibarluzea (environmental epidemiology researcher), lied during his testimony.
Dr. Ibarluzea conducted a study that found fluoride does not lower IQ in children, and that it actually plays a role in increasing the IQ of boys.
While under oath, Dr. Ibarluzea stated that he had never been asked to delete information relating to his fluoride study. However, an email with the CDC’s Division of Oral Health about his study ended with, “Please delete this message.” And the rest of the email was redacted by the CDC.
FAN Witnesses
Dr. Bruce Lanphear is a public health physician & pediatric epidemiologist that specializes in environmental exposures including lead & other toxic chemicals.
“What we found, whether we looked at urinary fluoride from the mom as a measure of exposure, or water fluoride, or an estimate of fluoride intake during pregnancy, in every case, we saw IQ deficits in the children…What we found is that women who are exposed to higher amounts of fluoride, especially if it’s in the water or if it’s a measure of fluoride intake, we saw an increased risk of those women developing hypothyroidism.”
Philippe Grandjean is a Danish environmental medicine scientist, head of the Environmental Medicine Research Unit at the University of Southern Denmark, and adjunct professor of environmental health at the Harvard School of Public Health.
“...It started about 50 years ago because Copenhagen in Denmark was where fluoride poisoning was discovered in the form of what’s called skeletal fluorosis, which means that the bones become denser, and on the x-ray it looks like marble. And way back then, when that was discovered in the 1930s, it was also discovered that the workers who had these high exposures had symptoms from the central nervous system. That is, that fluoride likely was affecting the functions of the brain. So we have now, lately, followed that up in regard to brain development in small children.”
“The problem is that our skeleton is continuously broken down and rebuilt. And during the breakdown of tissue that happens all the time, everyday, fluoride is released into the body, maybe fluoride that was consumed years ago. When we merge all the findings, we can see that there is a tendency, the higher the fluoride exposure during fetal life, that is, from the mother’s exposure, the greater the loss in IQ at school age.”
Dr. Kathleen Theisen is a risk assessment scientist with a PhD in genetics from the University of Tennessee – Oak Ridge.
“Neurotoxicity is a hazard of fluoride exposure, the evidence is abundant,”
When asked if she disagreed with the NTP’s author’s statement about the review being unclear she responded, “I don’t agree with the statement that it’s unclear. I don’t think it’s as unclear as they claim. Certainly we could always use more evidence, but it’s clear.”
When questioned about the usefulness of animal data in drawing conclusions about fluoride’s toxicity, she pushed back against the EPA’s attempts to dismiss the animal data. “To totally eliminate the animal studies for fluoride, which is a vast body of data, that goes into all kinds of animal studies on other toxins, psychology, and other areas. I don’t think that’s what (the researchers) intended.”
When asked if she agreed that the NTP authors were not able to draw any conclusions based on the animal data she responded, “I don’t think it was so much that they weren’t able to, but they chose not to.”
Dr. Howard Hu is a principal investigator in the Mexico ELEMENT study on fluoride’s impact on neurobehavioral development in pregnancy and birth cohorts, and lead toxicity and anti-social behavior researcher.
“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.”
Fluoride Lawsuit Comes to an End
Judge Chen will spend the next weeks reviewing the testimonies and various studies submitted. A final ruling could come within a week, or as long as a month or two. If the ruling is in favor of the plaintiffs then the EPA would have the opportunity to appeal, however it would not require re-litigation of the entire scientific case.
Regardless of the ruling, this case has been historic and has already provided many “wins” for everyday Americans.
This is the first time a citizen's petition under TSCA has made it to federal court.
This is the first time the dangers caused by water fluoridation have been presented by expert scientists in the federal courts.
The lawsuit helped uncover emails highlighting how parts of the US government have attempted to cover up the evidence linking fluoride to neurotoxicity in children.
This lawsuit helped shine light on how Harvard University and the World Health Organization have been infiltrated by the fluoride lobby.
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