PESHTIGO – While pressure is building for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to act on a judge’s order and reduce the maximum contaminant levels for fluoride, the City of Peshtigo is among the Wisconsin municipalities that may stop adding fluoride to their public water supply.
The City’s Water and Sewer Committee voted without opposition Tuesday, Nov. 12, to discontinue adding fluoride to its municipal well. Committee members included Chair Thomas Gryzwa, Fred Meintz, Daniel Seymour, Robert Warren and Gary Motkowski.
The vote was taken after the city’s Public Works Director Matt Decur explained the city’s water contains natural fluoride. Of the city’s four wells, only Well 2 has fluoride added to it because the other wells have naturally occurring fluoride levels approaching 0.7 mg per liter, the amount the state of Wisconsin considers optimal. He told the committee if he stops adding 0.2 mg/l to Well 2, “the most it will go down to is 0.5,” while the other three wells will continue to have fluoride levels approaching 0.7 mg/l.
The EPA has a recommended maximum fluoride limit of 2.0 mg/l, which is enforceable at 4.0 mg/l, while most public health agencies, including Wisconsin’s Department of Health Services, recommend a much lower standard of 0.7 mg/l. The City of Peshtigo’s fluoride levels range from about 0.4 mg/l to 0.7 mg/l, but even these are too high for Peshtigo resident Brenda Staudenmaier, who is pushing for a moratorium on fluoridation in public water supplies.
Many other municipalities in northeast Wisconsin say they don’t add fluoride at all to their public water supplies, according to information the Peshtigo Times obtained from the municipalities. The City of Oconto has reported a naturally occurring fluoride level of 2.1 mg/l in its Consumer Confidence Report.
Federal agencies, such as the U.S. Public Health Service, have lowered the recommended levels of fluoride in drinking water over the decades. In 2015, the Public Health Service lowered its recommendation to 0.7 mg/l from its previous range of 0.7 to 1.2 mg/l based on a risk-benefit analysis of fluorosis, or the effects of fluoridation on bone and skeletal development. The range was based on outdoor air temperature of geographic areas, researchers said, as people in warm climates consume more beverages, which could lead to higher fluoride exposure.
Excessive amounts of fluoride are associated with mottled teeth, brittle bones and thyroid issues, according to research.
The change in recommended levels was expected to result in a 25% reduction in fluoride intake from water, but a 14% reduction overall, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention article by Barbara Gooch.
For health scientists examining more recent fluoride studies, the more the research confirms the association between fluoride and neurotoxicity, the more important it becomes to inform the public. Some earlier studies didn’t look for this association, health experts said at a recent National Toxicity Program meeting. Instead, they were focused on fluorosis, or the effects of fluoridation on bone and skeletal development. Excessive amounts of fluoride also can cause mottled teeth and brittle bones, according to research. The National Institutes of Health defines excessive as above 1.5 mg/l, but that number varies depending on age and the type of fluorosis.
Staudenmaier, who sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over fluoride’s neurotoxic effects and its lack of action, spoke at the Peshtigo meeting on Nov. 12. “One critical issue with water fluoridation is that it ignores individual fluoride exposure. Water operators control the concentration, but the dose each person receives is unregulated,” Staudenmaier said. “Babies and children, who are most vulnerable, often consume the highest fluoride levels relative to body weight, especially in formula made with tap water,” she said.
While the EPA sets limits for fluoride in water, Staudenmaier said, it doesn’t consider how much fluoride people consume from other sources or because they drink more water than the average person.
Staudenmaier asked to speak last in the public comment period, and the committee granted this request, allowing her to speak after several public health experts who appeared virtually. Staudenmaier explained to a reporter she is often outnumbered at public meetings by speakers affiliated with the dental associations, which have advocated for fluoridation for decades. The health experts might not have been aware the city’s water has naturally occurring fluoride, but Staudenmaier was.
Marinette County Public Health Officer Molly Bonjean spoke first in the public comments period, saying she has well water and her young son had to undergo general anesthesia to have dental work performed on 10 cavities, including two crowns placed. She said she has asked her dentist and her pediatrician to prescribe fluoride supplements, but her requests have been denied. She advocated for maintaining fluoridation, noting low-income families may not be able to afford dental care. “More than one-third of children have cavities by the time they get into kindergarten,” she said.
Other speakers included Dr. Johnny Johnson, a pediatric dentist who is president of Portland, Oregon-based American Fluoridation Society, who appeared virtually. He said fluoridation was started decades ago after a dentist moved from an area with low levels of naturally occurring fluoride to Colorado Springs, Colo., which had high levels of naturally occurring fluoride. The dentist noticed his patients’ teeth had brown stains but no cavities. Fluoride can reduce the occurrence of cavities by 25%, he said, noting many health practitioners, from nurses and pediatricians to members of the American Dental Association, advocate for fluoridation in public water systems.
The American Fluoridation Society that Johnson heads is a small nonprofit with $291,000 in revenue in 2022, and $73,000 in expenses, according to its Form 990 filing with the IRS. It did not list any paid employees, though it listed Johnson’s hours as 40 a week for zero dollars. The nonprofit covers some expenses, including conference fees and travel costs.
Russell Dunkel, Wisconsin State Dental Director, also spoke virtually. He said the National Institutes of Health released a statement in June suggesting higher fluoride intakes might be associated with cognitive impairments. “We’ve heard repeatedly from the opposition that fluoride affects IQ. What we haven’t heard is how,” he said. “It was hypothesized thyroid disruption may be the mechanics by which fluoride impacts cognitive function,” but it has not been proven, he said.
“My colleagues and I both at DHS nationally and globally will continue to review all peer-reviewed scientific research on the subject as it becomes available, and if credible research becomes available that supports a change in policy and recommendations, then we will endorse those new directives in order to serve in the public’s best interest,” Dunkel said.
Staudenmaier had also spoken at the Oct. 8 Water and Sewer Committee, a couple of weeks after U.S. District Judge Edward Chen issued a judgment Sept. 24 in the Food & Water Watch v. EPA case, in which she is a plaintiff. The gap between the EPA’s maximum contaminant level for fluoride and the amount health agencies recommend was important in the Food & Water Watch v. EPA case. Judge Chen reviewed a body of scientific research and said the EPA’s current recommended levels of fluoride in drinking water pose an unreasonable risk of injury, including IQ loss. He ordered the EPA to initiate rulemaking in conformance with the Toxic Substances Control Act.
Staudenmaier said the EPA has until the end of November to file an appeal in the case, but the process of changing the maximum contaminant levels could take longer. The case has put the spotlight on fluoridation practices.
At a National Institutes of Health Sciences meeting held Oct. 30, Andrew Rooney, an acting branch chief in the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences’ Division of Translational Toxicology, suggested the process of reviewing national standards for fluoride could lag other grassroots efforts. He made a comparison to bisphenol A, commonly called BPA, an industrial chemical used in plastics.
“When our group evaluated BPA, the industry shifted away from BPA before regulation. The response to the science being out there was happening in advance of regulation,” Rooney said.
As awareness spreads about new research questioning the safety of fluoridation, a growing number of municipalities across the nation are taking action to stop adding fluoride to their municipal water systems. Staudenmaier said nine Wisconsin municipalities have stated they will stop adding fluoride to their water systems this year, and 14 more have said they are considering fluoride moratoriums. Fluoridation opponents are persuading municipalities by arguing people should have the right to consent to it.
Only a couple of municipalities in Marinette, Oconto and Menominee counties add fluoride to public water supplies. The cities of Marinette and Niagara add small amounts of fluoride to their water system, as does the City of Menominee, Mich., but they don’t exceed the recommended level of 0.7 mg/l.
At the National Institutes of Health Sciences meeting, the link between fluoridation and lower IQ also showed up in research on maternal fluoride’s effects on infants, said Kyla Taylor, an epidemiologist in the health sciences and integrative health assessments branch in the Division of Translational Toxicology at the National Institutes of Health Sciences.
“Fetal developing brains are especially vulnerable to neurotoxins,” she said. “Infants who live in fluoridated communities are at higher risk of fluoride toxicity.”
For Taylor and other health scientists examining the fluoride studies, the more that research confirms the association between fluoride and neurotoxicity, the more important it becomes to inform the public.
What’s changed, Taylor said, is the amount of research supporting the link between fluoride consumption and lower IQ. Some earlier studies didn’t look for this association. Instead, they were focused on fluorosis.
In the Town of Peshtigo, where some groundwater contains PFAS, or forever chemicals, from Johnson Controls’ Tyco unit, former Town Board Chair Cindy Boyle and other concerned residents have spoken about thyroid issues. In June, Tyco began using a new non-fluorinated formulation for its firefighting foam, the company said.
Fluoride toxicity takes several forms, according to Dr. Bill Osmunson, a retired dentist with a master’s in public health and a Doctor of Dental Surgery degree, who previously recommended fluoride for his patients but has made an about face and now opposes fluoridation.
“I’m devoting my life to the challenge. It seems so obvious to me when you look at the big picture that fluoridation may not be effective and fluoride is not safe,” he said.
The challenge for those against fluoridation is persuading dentists and municipal water utilities not to promote fluoride. Osmunson is among those dentists who believe fluoride intake leads to broken cusps and expensive dental work, such as crowns.
When asked why many dentists and dental associations aren’t willing to consider that fluoride has side effects, such as dental fluorosis, Osmunson said, “Why are people so engrained? I think part of it is money,” he said.
The dental procedures to repair broken cusps make dentists wealthy, he said. “That’s where we make most of our money — on crowns, bridges and root canals and retreatment of the crowns. Then having to extract the teeth and do implants and bridges,” he said.
“We’re making millions of dollars on fluoridation. Why would you want to kill the goose that laid the golden egg?” Osmunson asked rhetorically.
Osmunson also believes a link between fluoride and neurotoxicity exists. “Now that I look back at the research, I realize not only was fluoride causing dental fluorosis, it was also causing functional damage,” he said.
At the NIHS meeting, Taylor presented a new group of 19 high-quality research studies, with 18 of them linking excess fluoride intake with a decrease of two to five points in IQs.
For consumers, being proactive might mean avoiding fluoride, especially if you’re pregnant, Taylor said. When asked what Taylor would advise her pregnant friends, she responded, “If they wanted to avoid fluoride in water, there are options, like drinking purified water or deionized water. There are bottled waters that are available that have low or no fluoride in them,” she said. Water filter systems using reverse osmosis will filter out fluoride, she said, while most other kinds don’t.
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