By Hannah Schoenbaum and Mike Stobbe
Salt Lake City (AP) – The Secretary of the United States of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on Monday that he planned to say it to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to stop recommending the fluoridation of communities on a national scale. Kennedy also said that he was assessing a working group to focus on the issue.
Also on Monday, the American environmental protection agency announced that it was examining “new scientific information” on potential risks for fluorine health in drinking water. EPA has the main power to fix the maximum level of fluoridation of public water systems.
Kennedy told the Associated Press of his plans after a press conference with the EPA administrator Lee Zeldin in Salt Lake City.
Kennedy cannot order communities to stop fluoridation, but it can tell the CDC to stop recommending it and working with EPA to modify the authorized amount.
Utah last month became the first state to prohibit fluorine in drinking water, pushing the previous opposition of dentists and national health organizations who have warned this decision would cause medical problems that disproportionately affect low -income communities.
Republican governor Spencer Cox has signed legislation unless cities and communities decide to add the mineral of the cavity to their water systems. Water systems across the state must close their fluoridation systems before May 7.
Kennedy congratulated Utah for emerging as “the leader in the manufacture of healthy America”. UTAH and sponsor of the State Fluor Act.
“I am very, very proud of this state to be the first state to ban it, and I hope that many others will be,” he said.
Kennedy oversees the CDC, whose recommendations are widely followed but not compulsory. The governments of states and premises decide to add fluorine to water and, in the affirmative, how much – as long as it does not exceed a maximum of EPA, which is currently 4 milligrams per liter.
Zeldin said that his agency launched a renewed examination of scientific studies on potential risks for fluoride health in drinking water to help clarify changes to national standards.
“Once this evaluation is completed, we will have a fundamental scientific assessment updated which will shed light on the agency’s future stages,” said Zeldin. “Secretary Kennedy has long been at the forefront of this issue. His plea played a decisive role in our decision to examine the risks of exposure to fluorine, and we are committed to working alongside him, using a healthy science while we are advancing our mission to protect human health and the environment. “
Fluoride strengthens teeth and reduces cavities by replacing the minerals lost during normal wear, according to the CDC. In 1950, federal officials approved water fluoridation to prevent dental caries and in 1962, established directives on the amount of addition to water.
Kennedy, a former environmental lawyer, described the fluorine as “dangerous neurotoxin” and said that it had been associated with arthritis, bone ruptures and thyroid diseases. Some studies have suggested that such links may exist, generally at higher than recommended fluoride levels, although some examiners have questioned the quality of available evidence and have said that no final conclusion can be drawn.
In November, a few days before the presidential election, Kennedy said that Donald Trump was going to push the fluoride from drinking water on his first day of president. This did not happen, but Trump then chose Kennedy to lead the United States Ministry of Health and Social Services, where he had to take a kind of action. Meanwhile, some localities took place and decided to keep the water fluorescent.
Linked to all this: a massive series of endowment reductions last week in federal agencies included the elimination of the Bucco-Dentaire Health Division of 20 people from the CDC. This office has managed subsidies to local agencies to improve dental health and, in cases, encourage fluoritation.
Fluoride can come from a number of sources, but drinking water is the main for Americans, according to researchers. According to CDC data, almost two thirds of the American population receive fluorinated drinking water. The addition of low levels of fluoride to drinking water has long been considered one of the greatest achievements in public health of the last century.
About a third of community water systems – 17,000 out of 51,000 across the United States – serving more than 60% of the population fluoted their water, according to a CDC analysis in 2022. The agency currently recommends 0.7 milligram of fluorine per liter of water.
But over time, studies have documented potential problems. Too much fluoride has been associated with streaks or spots on the teeth. Studies have also retraced a link between excess fluoride and brain development.
A report last year by the Federal Government National toxicology program, which summed up the studies carried out in Canada, China, India, Iran, Pakistan and Mexico, concluded that drinking water with more than 1.5 milligram of fluoride per liter – more than twice the level recommended in the United States – was associated with lower IQs in children.
The president of the UTAH oral health coalition Lorna Koci said on Monday that she hoped that other states will postpone the withdrawal of fluorine and that Kennedy’s visit to celebrate the prohibition of her state fluoride underlines the political motivations of those who support him.
She predicted that children will have more cavities accordingly and said that donors of fluorine legislation in UTAH has disseminated false information that has raised doubts about its effectiveness. Opponents of the law warned that this would disproportionately affect low -income residents likely to count on drinking water containing fluorine as their only source of preventive dental care.
“It seems to be less on fluorine and more on power,” said Koci.
Stobbe reported in New York. The writer Associated Press Matthew Brown in Billings, Montana, contributed to the reports,
The Department of Health and Sciences of the Associated Press receives the support of the scientific and educational group of the media from the medical institute Howard Hughes and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
