second phase of the trial. The trial will be live streamed on Zoom for the public to view.
In a January 2024 pre-trial hearing, FAN attorney Michael Connett introduced evidence that key a EPA witness lied under oath.
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Fluoride On Trial The Censored Science on Fluoride and Your Health
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The Second Fluoride Trial (January 31 – February 20, 2024)
The second trial in the TSCA fluoride lawsuit took place January 31 – February 13, 2024, at the Federal Courthouse in San Francisco and was live-streamed on Zoom. The trial lasted two weeks and featured testimony from the same FAN expert witnesses seen in the first fluoride trial – Drs. Hu, Lanphear, Grandjean, and Thiessen.
FAN attorney Michael Connett gave the opening statement in the second fluoride trial, laying out key evidence in the case against fluoride, including EPA documents showing that the neonatal stage is critical to brain development and vulnerable to neurotoxins. Connett pointed out that fluoride’s transfer from the mother to the fetal brain was an undisputed fact agreed upon by both parties, as were fluoride’s neurotoxic effects on fetal and infant brain development. Connett described how several of the EPA’s own employees agreed under oath with the assessment that fluoride is a neurotoxin.
Central to the crux of the case, Connett focused on EPA’s admittance that they did not use the appropriate EPA guidelines in their risk evaluation of fluoride and did not follow the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) statutes when evaluating whether fluoride posed an unreasonable risk to the developing brain. Not only did EPA fail to follow TSCA and agency risk assessment rules, but they went further by admitting that they held fluoride to a higher standard than any other chemical. This included the EPA’s insistence in discounting high-dose fluoride studies, while EPA has never disregarded higher-dose studies when identifying a hazard with any other chemical.
Connett also honed in on the National Toxicology Program’s (NTP) systematic review of fluoride neurotoxicity, and a large body of animal data showing brain harm from fluoride. The NTP review found a large number of studies have been published on fluoride and human IQ. In total they identified 72 human studies of which 64 found a connection between fluoride and IQ deficits. 18 of the 19 studies deemed high quality found that fluoride lowered IQ, a 95% consistency. Connett flagged recent research relied upon by EPA that did not find neurotoxic effects from fetal fluoride exposures as deeply suspicious. He said the authors of these studies were long-time promoters of water fluoridation, compared to FAN expert witnesses, who have all worked with the EPA and have been relied upon as experts on the regulation of environmental
toxins by governments around the world and are subject-matter experts on fluoride.
Connett discussed how the exposure level at which a chemical presents a risk for toxic effects (a threshold level) varies substantially across the human population, but the point of a regulatory action is to protect the most vulnerable people in the population. Connett stressed to the Court that “TSCA commands us to protect the vulnerable”. Connett then wrapped up by pointing out that roughly two million pregnant women and 400,000 formula-fed babies exposed to fluoride in water are at risk and that TSCA requires the EPA to consider injuries that chemicals pose to sensitive and highly exposed people.
The EPA focused their opening statement on the talking point that “the dose makes the poison,” suggesting, in contrast to the actual published research, that there is insufficient compelling evidence that fluoride is a neurotoxin at the current levels used for fluoridation in the U.S. and that therefore water fluoridation doesn’t pose a risk to children. EPA named the expert witnesses it will call in the case: David Savitz, Ph.D., who chaired NASEM’s committee that peer reviewed the NTP’s systematic review; EPA risk assessment expert, Stan Barone, Jr., PhD; and and Jesus Ibarluzea, PhD, authored of the flawed “Spanish” study.
FAN attorney Michael Connett then called our first expert witness to the stand, Howard Hu, MD, MPH, ScD. Dr. Hu has authored more than 320 papers in peer-reviewed journals and published several landmark studies on fluoride and the brain. He also advises the EPA and collaborates with its scientists on issues related to lead exposure.
Connett asked Dr. Hu how he would compare the peer review process that his fluoride studies underwent with other studies he’s published. Hu responded that his fluoride studies are “probably the most extensive peer review process I’ve experienced.” Hu also discussed his concerns about the Spanish study the EPA used as a basis to argue fluoride is not toxic at low levels, and criticized the EPA’s opening statements, saying that the EPA was presenting data as black and white.
Hu then compared his Canada MIREC cohort study and Hu’s more recent MADRES cohort study from the U.S. Both indicate higher levels of fluoride in the urine of pregnant mothers in the third trimester. Hu remarked that the third trimester increase is reminiscent of what we saw with lead: fluoride is stored in the mother’s bones and during the third trimester, when fetal bone growth accelerates, the mother’s body transfers calcium from her bones, along with any present toxins like fluoride, to the fetus.
Dr. Hu was interviewed by independent journalist Derrick Broze after the first day of court adjourned:
Fluoride Trial Interview - Dr. Howard Hu
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Next up was FAN expert witnesses Bruce Lanphear, MD, MPH, who has studied the impact of toxic chemicals, including lead and pesticides, on children’s brain development for over 20 years. Lanphear testified that his research has been almost exclusively funded by federal agencies, including the EPA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In fact, Dr. Lanphear’s research was cited by the EPA as the principle study upon which the agency based its current regulatory standards for lead in air and water.-=
Lanphear discussed the findings and methodology used for several landmark human studies funded and vetted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on fluoride and the brain that he co-authored. Lanphear stated that out of the 350+ studies he’s published, his study was one of the two most rigorously reviewed and scrutinized studies prior to publication in his career due to the “implications for public health policy.” His study found a linear dose-response relationship between fluoride and IQ, meaning that the lowered IQ effect occurred with any level of fluoride exposure and increased as the exposure increased.