The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has declined a petition to change the source of fluoride in U.S. drinking water.
The petition, which sought a regulatory change of fluoride agents in drinking water, "provides no information that would cause EPA to question the current approach," the EPA stated in a notice published in the August 12, 2013, Federal Register, a digest of government regulatory activity.
The EPA regulates fluoridation under the Safe Drinking Water Act.
The petition was submitted in May by William Hirzy, PhD, a chemistry researcher at American University in Washington, DC, and a longtime opponent of fluoridation.
The current source of fluoride in most public water supplies is fluorosilicic acid, a byproduct of phosphate fertilizer manufacturing. Hirzy claims that the acid is often contaminated with arsenic.
