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Public Health On Call

835 - Fluoride and The Law

Public Health On Call

The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

News, Health & Fitness, Medicine

4.6 • 644 Ratings

🗓️ 15 January 2025

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

About this episode:

Conversations about fluoride in the water supply are revving up but a key factor in the debate is the legal framework. In this episode: a discussion about the relevant law for assessing fluoride added to drinking water known as the Toxic Substances Control Act—a law limited to a focus on risk, not benefit—and what that means for emerging science and policy discussions around fluoridating water.

Guest:

Dr. Lynn Goldman is a pediatrician, the dean of the Milken Institute School of Public Health at the George Washington University, and an expert in environmental health.

Host:

Dr. Josh Sharfstein is vice dean for public health practice and community engagement at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, a faculty member in health policy, a pediatrician, and former secretary of Maryland's Health Department.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Welcome to Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health,

0:05.9

where we bring evidence, experience, and perspective to make sense of today's leading health challenges.

0:16.3

If you have questions or ideas for us, please send an email to public health question at jh.h.edu.

0:23.8

That's public health question at jh.u.edu for future podcast episodes.

0:31.8

Dr. Lynn Goldman, it is great to have you in public health on call to talk about a complicated issue. How are you doing today?

0:42.0

I'm fine. How are you, Josh? I'm good, and I'll be honest. I have been reading a lot about fluoride in the news,

0:50.7

in part because of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. saying he wants to get it out of all the

0:55.7

drinking water in this country. And from there, I went on to various commentaries on different

1:01.2

sides of the issue and different court decisions and journal articles. And I kind of stopped

1:07.5

myself at a certain point halfway down the rabbit hole and I said,

1:11.3

I want to find the most thoughtful person on an environmental health issue to talk this over

1:18.4

with and your face just popped right into my mind.

1:22.0

We've known each other for a long time.

1:24.0

You are a pediatrician, environmental health expert.

1:27.0

You've worked as a regulator. Could you introduce

1:29.4

yourself a little further to the audience? Yeah, I mean, I'm currently a dean of the School of Public

1:35.0

Health at George Washington University. But as you say, in my past life, I was a regulator. I ran

1:42.4

the chemicals and pesticide programs at the U.S. EPA as an assistant

1:48.2

administrator. And I also worked in public health for the state of California. And I've done

1:55.0

pediatric environmental health research at Hopkins, actually, before coming to George Washington.

2:01.5

And I was the health commissioner in Baltimore City and ran into some environmental health

2:06.1

challenges, you were my first number on speed dial back when we had speed dial.

...

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