The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has shared its plan to develop a toxicity assessment for fluoride, according to a statement shared in the Federal Register. The first step, as described in the notice, is to develop a “Fluoride Preliminary Assessment Plan and Literature Survey (Assessment Plan) for public comment to provide transparency and gather early feedback.”
This plan is not a toxicity assessment and is not intended to provide a conclusion on the “harmful human health effects of fluoride or determine the level of fluoride exposure at or above which is associated with harmful health effects,” the agency wrote in the Federal Register. Rather, the assessment will be used to “inform future decisions about potential revisions to the existing fluoride drinking water standard under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA).”
Public comments on the Assessment Plan will be accepted for 30 days.
Last week, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said Americans “should be able to count on safe, healthy drinking water when they pour a glass to drink or use it to cook a meal, especially for a child. The Trump EPA is working in lockstep with Secretary Kennedy and following gold standard science to guide our next steps to protect drinking water under the Safe Drinking Water Act.”
The comment comes as the agency released its “Review of Science on Fluoride in Drinking Water: Preliminary Assessment Plan and Literature Survey,” which explained that prolonged exposure to fluoride at higher levels is associated with “an increased prevalence of bone weakening, called skeletal fluorosis, across all lifestages which can include brittle bones, increased risk of fractures, and crippling.”
