Less than two weeks after Governor Spencer Cox signed legislation to ban fluoridation in Utah’s public water systems, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) announced it will review new information about the benefits and risks of fluoride in drinking water. Appearing together at a news conference in Salt Lake City, USEPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced plans for the new scientific evaluation on the standard for fluoride under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA).
USEPA will review an August 2024 report from the National Toxicology Program that concludes with “moderate confidence” that fluoride exposure above 1.5 milligrams per liter is associated with lower IQ in children. The report also concluded that more research is needed to better understand if there are health risks associated with exposure to lower fluoride concentrations.
USEPA intends to review the National Toxicology Program report, plus additional peer reviewed studies to develop an updated health effects assessment for fluoride that will inform any potential revisions to the existing fluoride drinking water standard, which has a primary maximum contaminant level (MCL) of 4.0 mg/L and a secondary MCL of 2.0 mg/L.
For questions about fluoridation in your water system, contact Nate Weisenburger, AE2S Drinking Water Practice Leader. You can also read the AE2S article, Fluoridation: A Complex Issue Without a One-Size-Fits-All Solution, from The Update newsletter.