By Mike Stobbe and Kasturi Pananjady
NEW YORK (AP) – The Secretary of the United States of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he wanted the communities to stop fluorescent water, and he sets the government’s gears in motion to help get there.
Kennedy this week said that he was planning to say to the centers for Disease Control and Prevention to stop recommending fluoritation in the country’s communities. And he said that he was assessing a health expert working group to study the problem and make new recommendations.
At the same time, the US Environmental Protection Agency announced that it would examine new scientific information on the potential risks for fluorine health in drinking water. The EPA establishes the maximum level authorized in public water systems.
Here is an overview of how the inversion of fluorine policy has become a point of action under the administration of President Donald Trump.
The advantages of fluoride
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.
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. The American Dental Association attributes the reduction of dental caries by more than 25% in children and adults.
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.
Potential problems with too much fluoride
The CDC currently recommends 0.7 milligrams of fluoride per liter of water.
Over time, studies have documented potential problems when people get much more than that.
An excess fluorine intake has been associated with strict or stains on the teeth. And studies have also traced 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 by the CDC – was associated with lower IQs in children.
Meanwhile, last year, a federal judge ordered the EPA to further regulate fluorine in drinking water. The American district judge Edward Chen warned that it is not certain that fluoride causes a weaker IQ in children, but he concluded that research underlined an unreasonable risk that it could be.
Kennedy mowed against fluoride
Kennedy, a former environmental lawyer, described the fluorine as “dangerous neurotoxin” and “industrial waste” linked to a range of health dangers. He said he had been associated with arthritis, bone breaks 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.
How the fluoride recommendations can be modified
CDC 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 the limit of EPA of 4 milligrams per liter.
Kennedy cannot therefore order communities to stop fluoridation, but it can tell the CDC to stop recommending it.
It would be usual to summon a panel of experts to comb through research and assess the evidence that talks about the advantages and disadvantages of water fluoridation. But Kennedy has the power to stop or modify a CDC recommendation without it.
“Power lies in the secretary”, but public confidence would erode if the recommendations are changed without a clear scientific basis, said Lawrence Gostin, expert in public health law at the University of Georgetown.
“If you are really serious about this, you are not content to change it,” he said. “You ask someone like the National Academy of Sciences to study – then you follow their recommendations.”
Kennedy said on Monday that he was formed a working group to focus on fluorine, while saying at the same time that he would order the CDC to stop recommending it.
HHS officials did not immediately answer questions to search for more information on what the working group would do.
Some places are already retreating on fluorine
UTAH has recently become the first state to prohibit fluoride in drinking water, and legislators elsewhere examine the issue.
An associated analysis of the press data from the CDC for 36 states shows that many communities have stopped fluoridation in recent years.
According to the analysis of the AP.
The Mississippi alone represented more than 1 out of 5 water systems that stopped. Most of the water systems that have interrupted fluoritation have mainly done so to save money, said Melissa Parker, the deputy deputy deputy for the Mississippi Health Department.
During the pandemic, the Mississippi health service allowed local water systems to temporarily cease fluorily because they could not buy sodium fluoride in the world of the world’s supply chain problems. Many have never restarted, said Parker.
CDC financing for fluoride is generally a small factor
Since 2003, the CDC has funded a limited number of oral health programs by the State through cooperative agreements. The agreements take place in cycles and, at the beginning of this year, 15 states each received $ 380,000 over three years.
Money can be used on a number of things, including collecting data on people with dental problems, dental care and technical assistance for community water fluoridation activities.
The current funding for oral health goes to Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Nevada, New York, Northern Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia and Wisconsin.
States are invited not to use money for chemicals, as funding is intended to help put in place fluoritation, not for daily expenses, said federal officials. South Carolina, for example, puts aside up to $ 50,000 to help communities in this state fluorescent. Iowa spends about $ 65,000 to promote the fluoritation of community water.
Earlier this year, CDC officials refused to answer questions about the quantity of total oral health currency to fluoritation.
Now there is no one to ask: last week, the entire CDC oral health division was eliminated as part of general reductions in government endowment.
The congress appropriated money to the CDC specifically to support oral health programs, and certain members of the Congress staff say that the agency must distribute these funds, regardless of the HHS or the CDC. But the budget cuts focused on Trump struck a number of programs that the congress had requested, and it is not clear what will happen to financing the oral health of the CDC.
Fluoration is relatively cheap compared to other expenditure in the water service, and most communities simply integrate the cost of the water prices billed to customers, according to the American Water Works Association.
In Érié, in Pennsylvania, for example, fluorescent water for 220,000 people costs $ 35,000 to $ 45,000 per year and is entirely funded by water prices, said Craig Palmer, CEO of ERIE WATER AUTHORITY.
So, cutting money from the CDC would not have much impact on most communities, said certain experts, although this may have more impact for certain smaller rural communities.
Pananjady reported to Philadelphia.
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
