NIH Supported Journal Publishes Landmark Study Linking Fluoride to Low IQ

Increased levels of prenatal fluoride exposure have been linked to lower intelligence in children, according to the results of a new study.

In the eye-opening new peer-reviewed study, published on September 19, 2017, in the Journal of Environmental Health Perspectives, researchers found strong evidence of a link between fluoride and lower cognitive function in children.

With an impact factor of 9.78, Environmental Health Perspectives is one of the most highly ranked journals in Toxicology, Public, Environmental and Occupational Health, and Environmental Sciences.

The researchers found that “higher levels of maternal urinary fluoride during pregnancy (a proxy for prenatal fluoride exposure) that are in the range of levels of exposure in other general population samples of pregnant women as well as nonpregnant adults were associated with lower scores on tests of cognitive function in the offspring at 4 and 6–12 y old,” according to the study.

The study involved 1,576 samples taken from over 300 sets of mothers and children in Mexico by a research team from Toronto. The researchers tested the children’s cognitive development twice over the course of 12 years. In Mexico, Fluoride is not added to public water supply, but people are exposed through naturally occurring fluoride in water, toothpaste, fluoridated salt and other supplemental products.

“Childhood exposure to fluoride is safer than prenatal. There is pretty good science now to support the fact that the fetal system tends to be more sensitive to environmental toxicants than once the child is born,” said the study’s lead author, Howard Hu, founding dean of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto, according to CNN.

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The authors of the study looked for chemical markers in the urine of mothers and children, as previous studies attempted to measure fluoride exposure by analyzing environmental factors, such as water.

“Since we’re using an integrated biological marker, it will give you a fairly standardized measure,” Hu explained.

Interestingly, the study found significant effect – with an increase in urine fluoride of 1mg/l being associated with a 5 to 6 point drop in IQ score. For perspective, the average fluoride intake in Mexican mothers was roughly the same as that of women in the United States.

“The range of fluoride levels in Mexico also corresponded closely to the range found in most of the USA. The higher levels were similar to what is found in areas in the USA with fluoridated water, and the lower levels were similar to what is found in most unfluoridated parts of the USA,” according to the Fluoride Action Network (FAN).

According to a report by FAN:

Most of the Mexican women had urine fluoride between 0.5 and 1.5 mg/L. Studies have found that adults in the USA have between about 0.6 and 1.5 mg/L, almost exactly the same range. From the low end of that range to the high end is a difference of 1 mg/L which is what caused the 5 to 6 IQ point difference in the children of the study mothers.

The study found a drop in scores on intelligence tests for every 0.5 milligram-per-liter increase in fluoride exposure beyond 0.8 milligrams per liter found in urine. However, although the researchers found a potential connection to a child’s exposure to fluoride in utero, they found no significant influence from fluoride exposure on brain development once a child was born.

The study reveals the relationship between urine fluoride and IQ in the graph reproduced here:

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FAN has recreated the graph in simplified form to more clearly illustrate the relationship between mothers’ urine fluoride and children’s IQ.

This simplified version of the graph highlights the range of urine fluoride levels common in women in the USA with the blue text and bracket. When comparing mothers at the low end to those at the high end of this range, the subsequent loss of IQ in their children was 6 points. The light red shaded zone around the relationship line is the 95% Confidence Interval and demonstrates that the relationship is statistically significant across the entire range of fluoride exposures.

This is not the first time fluoride has been shown to act as a neurotoxin.

“There have been similar findings related to exposure to fluoride and IQ from children in China. So this observation or association has been reported before,” Linda Birnbaum, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, told CNN. Birnbaum was not involved in the study.

In 2012, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) working in conjunction with China Medical University in Shenyang conducted a meta-analysis of 27 related studies published in Environmental Health Perspectives. The report noted that “fluoride may adversely affect cognitive development in children,” adding “children in high-fluoride areas had significantly lower IQ scores than those who lived in low-fluoride areas.”

Following up on the original findings, the Harvard cooperative team found “fluoride in drinking water may produce developmental neurotoxicity.”

“Results of our pilot study showed that moderate and severe dental fluorosis was significantly associated with deficits in WISC-IV digit span. Children with moderate or severe dental fluorosis scored significantly lower in total and backward digit span tests than those with normal or questionable fluorosis. These results suggest a deficit in working memory,” according to the Harvard cooperative study.

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While some of the Chinese studies were unable to control for other potential neurotoxins such as lead or mercury, giving it less validity, the new Mexican study controlled for those two neurotoxins, along with socioeconomic status, education and numerous other factors.

“This is a very well-conducted study, and it raises serious concerns about fluoride supplementation in water,” Dr. Leonardo Trasande, a pediatrician who studies potential links between environmental exposures and health problems at New York University Langone Health, told Newsweek. (He was not involved in the new study.)

It seems clear that pregnant women should stay away from fluoride, as it appears to clearly and significantly affect the neurological development of their children in utero, and the rest of the population would likely be wise to do the same given the numerous studies critical of fluoride.

Please share this important information — and especially with anyone you know who is pregnant!

For the First Time, Lawsuit Forces US Court to Review Fluoride Toxicity, Could END Fluoridation

Despite the overwhelming mass of scientific literature and studies showing the harmful effects of ingesting fluoride, those who question it or advocate for the cessation of fluoridated water are labeled as kooks, conspiracy theorists, and shouted down by the mainstream. Even when the mainstream admits it — as in the case of the highly publicized Harvard Study — people remain in denial about this most horrific practice of mass medication without consent using the poisonous byproduct of fertilizer production.

However, all that appears to be changing. For the first time in US history, the courts will hear the evidence on the neurotoxicity of fluoridated water which could out an end to this practice once and for all.

Thanks to the vigilant work of the folks at the Fluoride Action Network, who’ve refused for years to be silenced, we are now witnessing an unprecedented move to stop this practice. Thousands of pages of research put together by dozens of scientists and doctors has been included in a lawsuit that could end water fluoridation in the United States.

Simply put, the evidence has reached critical mass and even the government can’t deny it.

Fluoridation, Americans are told, is necessary for the prevention of tooth decay. We must drink it and we must give our children fluoridated water in order for everyone to have a healthy smile — or so we have been advised for the last 60 years.

A whopping 43 studies have linked fluoride ingestion with a reduction in IQ. A study out of the Harvard School of public Health concluded, “children in high-fluoride areas had significantly lower IQ scores than those who lived in low-fluoride areas.”

Even more independent studies have linked the associated health risks of fluoride to interfering with the endocrine system and increasing the risk of impaired brain function. Two studies in recent years, for example, have linked fluoridation to ADHD and underactive thyroid.

Dozens more studies show the ineffectiveness of fluoride ingestion in preventing dental caries; they actually show an increase in dental fluorosis instead of a reduction in decay.

Approximately 1.2 grams of sodium fluoride will kill an adult human being. That was the low estimate that Dominic Smith ingested when he died from an overdose of fluoridated water at Hooper Bay, Alaska on May 23, 1992. Approximately 200 mg will kill a small child.

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In spite of this evidence showing that the mass drugging of the American population is harmful, the CDC and the EPA maintain that it is 100% safe and that drinking the extremely deadly byproducts of fertilizer production is just fine and dandy.

It is because of the government’s continued denial and dismissal of scientific evidence that the Fluoride Action Network (FAN) has filed this landmark lawsuit.

FAN is not some ragtag group of conspiracy theorists sitting around in their basements reading fake science on the internet. The group is comprised of dozens of medical doctors, dentists, PhDs, and scientists, who’ve joined forces to bring an end to this most unethical and dangerous practice.

Stuart Cooper, FAN’s Campaign Director issued an open letter this week, noting how the “Fluoride Action Network (FAN), along with a coalition of environmental and public health groups has filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in response to their denial of our petition under Section 21 of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) seeking a ban on water fluoridation.

“We believe this lawsuit is an unprecedented opportunity to end the practice once and for all in the U.S., and potentially throughout the world, based on the well-documented neurotoxicity of fluoride.” You may read the official complaint here. According to FAN’s attorney and adviser, Michael Connett:

“This case will present the first time a court will consider the neurotoxicity of fluoride and the question of whether fluoridation presents an unreasonable risk under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).

And, in contrast to most other legal challenges of Agency actions, TSCA gives us the right to get the federal court to consider our evidence ‘de novo’ — meaning federal courts are to conduct their own independent review of the evidence without deference to the EPA’s judgment.”

According to FAN, the reason for the lawsuit was due to the fact that the EPA dismissed their massive cache of information submitted to them, via petition, last year.

On November 22, 2016, a coalition including FAN, Food & Water Watch, Organic Consumers Association, American Academy of Environmental Medicine, International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology, Moms Against Fluoridation and several individual mothers, filed a petition calling on the EPA to ban the deliberate addition of fluoridating chemicals to the drinking water under provisions in the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).

The petition includes more than 2,500 pages of scientific documentation detailing the risks of water fluoridation to human health.

We presented the FDA with a large body of human and animal evidence demonstrating that fluoride is a neurotoxin at levels now ingested by many U.S. children and vulnerable populations. We also presented the agency with evidence showing that fluoride has little benefit when swallowed and, accordingly, any risks from exposing people to fluoride chemicals in water are unnecessary.

Despite this petition, the EPA, who illustrates through this move and many others that it is beholden to special interests only and not the people, denied it.

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There is now a significant consensus happening in the scientific community noting that fluoride is, indeed, neurotoxic. For the EPA to dismiss scientific facts is not only irresponsible but it is now proving to be criminal.

The question now is not if fluoride damages the brain — it is at what dose does fluoride damage the brain.

According to FAN, EPA’s own Guidelines for Neurotoxicity Risk Assessment highlights the importance of having a robust margin between the doses of a chemical that cause neurotoxic effects and the doses that humans receive. FAN presented the EPA with over 180 studies showing that fluoride causes neurotoxic harm (e.g., reduced IQ), pointing out that many of these studies found harm at levels within the range, or precariously close to, the levels millions of American children now receive.

Since the petition was submitted to the EPA in November and subsequently denied, more damning evidence has surfaced in the case against fluoride — and, this time, it’s from the EPA’s own scientist.

As FAN reports, some children in the U.S. may be consuming enough fluoridated water to reach doses of fluoride that have the potential to lower their IQ, according to a research team headed by William Hirzy, Ph.D., a former senior scientist at the EPA who specialized in risk assessment and published an important risk analysis in the journal Fluoride last year.

Hirzy explains the significance of this study:

“The significance of this peer reviewed risk analysis is that it indicates there may be no actual safe level of exposure to fluoride. Groups of children with lower exposures to fluoride were compared with groups having higher exposures. Those with higher exposures performed more poorly on IQ tests than those with lower exposures.

One well-conducted Chinese study indicated that children exposed to 1.4 mg/day had their IQ lowered by 5 IQ points. Current average mean daily intakes among children in the United States are estimated by EPA to range from about 0.80 mg/day to 1.65 mg/day. Fluoride may be similar to lead and mercury in having no threshold below which exposures may be considered safe.”

The fight against fluoride across the globe is winning. According to FAN, millions of citizens in hundreds of municipalities throughout the world have forced their governments to stop drugging them without consent using this toxic waste. This action is working and the lawsuit is proof of its effectiveness.

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For those who’d like to support the Fluoride Action Network or would like to know how you can get involved, there are some tips below. Please share this article with your friends and family to let them know that we the people are finally making progress when it comes to our health and the health of our children.