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Two Republican state senators will be introducing a bill in the upcoming legislative session that would ban the use of fluoride in drinking water throughout the state.
It’s being introduced by Mike Fesi of Houma and Patrick McMath of Covington.
McMath says with nearly every toothpaste on the market containing fluoride, there is no reason why it should be in drinking water.
“We should be able to know and approve of what’s going into our drinking water and not have medication forced on us blindly, which is essentially what this is,” says McMath.
McMath says studies found that fluoride concentration that exceeds 1.5 mg/L can cause health issues.
“Several peer-viewed studies have recently come out that have suggested associations between fluoride exposure during pregnancy and decreased cognitive measures during childhood,” McMath points out.
McMath says studies also show that excessive fluoride levels can cause Alzheimer’s Disease in adults.
But Felicia Rabito, a professor of epidemiology at Tulane University, says McMath’s reasoning doesn’t add up, pointing out that the current EPA recommendation is .07 mg/L.
“There’s been no scientific data that has linked excess fluoride higher than the levels that are recommended by the EPA with any adverse health outcomes,” says Rabito.
One of the reports McMath was alluding to was one done last August by the National Toxicology Program.
Rabito says that report is problematic in its methodology.
“It didn’t undergo the typical peer review process,” Rabito points out. “It was reviewed by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine; they didn’t approve it because of the methodologic flaws.”
Rabito says even if the report is accepted as fact, it’s irrelevant because it cites a fluoride concentration level that’s more than twice the EPA recommended level.
A similar bill in Utah is now just a governor’s signature away from becoming law.
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