With all the breaking news about war in the Middle East, the 2024 presidential election and America's southern border crisis, many are unaware that FAN, a longtime public advocacy group, has finally taken the EPA to court over the fluoride scandal.
Former National Toxicology Program (NTP) scientific director Brian Berridge, DVM, PhD, recently testified at the trial about an NTP draft report linking fluoridated water consumption to lower IQ in children. Said report was court-ordered to be released last March, and Berridge was there at the trial to speak about it.
Once in the courtroom, Berridge was muzzled by Judge Edward Chen and told he could only discuss the formal NTP report publication process. Berridge was restricted from expressing his own educated viewpoints about the political overreach that steers NTP reporting, including the NTP's delay of releasing the findings.
Berridge later spoke with The Defender about his concerns with what transpired, stating that he is annoyed at how the NTP report publication process was delayed, which he says is due to public health agencies' desire to protect the fluoridation process they already have in place.
"This lack of consideration for all the possible people who could be harmed by [water fluoridation] so that we don't implicate something that we have intentionally done bothers me a lot," Berridge expressed, further noting that because of the delay, many public health officials are ignoring the public's growing concern about fluoride exposure.
(Related: A full decade ago, researchers at Harvard University recognized that drinking fluoridated water causes ADHD and mental disorders.)
Where's the honest fluoride research?
The purpose of the NTP releasing such reports is supposed to be about informing public health agencies about the latest science so they can make any necessary adjustments to their processes. In this case, the NTP report's findings that link fluoride exposure to low IQ in children was supposed to be released as soon as possible, but was delayed for political purposes.
In partnership with Moms Against Fluoridation, Food & Water Watch and other advocacy groups, FAN is taking the EPA to task in an attempt to stop artificial water fluoridation throughout the United States. Part of making that happen involves getting the NTP report into the hands of public health policymakers so they can institute real change.
When Berridge attempted to help the process along by offering his testimony on the matter, the EPA convinced Judge Chen back in December to bar him from giving it, arguing that he would expose the political influence behind the scenes that aims to stop the NTP report from ever being formally published.
"The NTP, a subagency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that produces scientific research meant to inform policymaking, concluded in the report that prenatal and childhood exposure to higher levels of fluoride is associated with decreased IQ in children," explains Children's Health Defense (CHD), which publishes The Defender.
Transgender HHS Assistant Secretary for Health "Rachel" Levine also played a role in stopping the NTP from publishing its fluoride report back in May 2022, having ordered the NTP not to publish the report and rather put it on hold indefinitely.
"You would be hard-pressed to find an analysis that has the level of rigor and review that this particular analysis does," Berridge said about the report.
The latest news about the fight against fluoridated water can be found at Fluoride.news.
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