Page 41 - Spring 2019 Journal

The authors both work for the Fluoride Ac- tion Network (FAN),1 a nonprofit dedicated to education and sharing information on the toxic- ity of fluoride. FAN maintains the largest data- base dedicated to fluoride’s toxicity on blood,2 bone,3 brain,4 heart,5 kidney,6 liver,7 lung,8 the reproductive system,9 and the thyroid gland;10 as well as the largest collection of news articles on fluoride11 that are accessible by country, by state for the U.S. and by province for Canada. The website also contains links to many videotaped interviews,12 government reports by country,13 fluoride industrial emissions by state14 and more.
NEITHER ETHICAL NOR SCIENTIFIC
It was neither ethical nor scientific to force people to consume fluoride in 1945, and it is not ethical or scientific to do it today. The argu- ments get stronger as U.S. authorities are finally getting around to doing the studies on tissues that they should have conducted many years ago—and should have done before they started what has amounted to one of the largest public
health experiments in U.S. history.
PROTECTING A BELIEF SYSTEM
The dilemma for those who believe that this practice is causing harm is how to end it when most people don’t even know their water is being fluoridated and don’t know the potential risks it may be posing to their children. Sadly, most doctors and dentists simply follow the policies of their professional bodies without reading the lit- erature for themselves. The media are not telling the public about the latest health studies and are simply parroting statements from organizations like the American Dental Association (ADA) and agencies like the Oral Health Division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which hold a long standing “belief” in the “safety and effectiveness” of this practice. Meanwhile, government health departments at all levels appear to be more interested in pro- tecting this outdated policy than protecting the
health of our children.
The task that FAN has set itself since 2000
is to share the science about the dangers posed by this practice with those who are willing to read and listen, mainly through our web page at FluorideALERT.org and through public pre-
SPRING 2019
sentations (for example, in Seattle15). The latest science makes it very clear that the practice of fluoridation must stop!
FLUORIDE AND INTELLIGENCE
In 2006, the National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academies concluded that “fluorides have the ability to interfere with functions of the brain”16 and for the first time
called fluoride an endocrine disruptor.17
In 2006, there were only five IQ studies available to the NRC panel. Subsequently, many more have been published (including studies that were previously only available in Chinese). As of 2019, we now have sixty studies, fifty-three of which have shown a lowered IQ in children in communities with high fluoride exposure compared to communities with lower fluoride
exposure.18
Most of these studies have been carried out
in China, but others took place in India, Iran and Mexico. In 2012, twenty-seven of these studies were subjected to a meta-analysis by a team from Harvard, which was published in one of the world’s leading environmental health journals, Environmental Health Perspectives.19
While this team had concerns about the lack of information on several possible con- founding factors in many of these studies, they were struck by the consistency of the results. Even though the research was carried out over a period of twenty-one years, by many differ- ent research teams, in two countries (China and Iran) and in many different locations, twenty-six out of the twenty-seven studies found the same result: a lowering of IQ. The average lowering was seven IQ points.
It should be noted that a shift downward of five IQ points in a large population would halve the number of very bright children (IQ greater than one hundred thirty) and increase by over 50 percent the number of mentally handicapped (IQ lower than seventy). Such a downward shift would have both huge economic and social consequences for a country like the USA.
Promoters of fluoridation have done their best to diminish the significance of these find- ings for fluoridated communities, but recent find- ings have largely undermined their self-serving arguments. A rigorous U.S. government-funded
Wise Traditions
In 2006, the National
Research Council (NRC) of
the National Academies concluded that “fluorides have the ability to interfere with functions of the brain.”
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