Fluoride Brain-Drain Damaging our Children?

EPA lists fluoride as having “Substantial Evidence of Developmental Neurotoxicity.” http://www.epa.gov/ncct/toxcast/files/summit/48P%20Mundy%20TDAS.pdf

Fluoride is one of 213 known brain-toxic chemicals that may lower the intelligence of generations of children, reports renowned physician and 30-year brain researcher, Dr. Phillipe Grandjean in his book, “Only One Chance: How Environmental Pollution Impairs Brain Development.

Since 1945, fluoride, neither a nutrient nor essential for healthy teeth, has been added to US public water supplies without considering that fluoride could harm other body parts, especially the brain. Now over 100 animal and 45+ human studies link fluoride to brain deficits.

When environmental chemicals affect developing brains, children risk cognitive deficits, learning disabilities, mental retardation, ADHD, autism, cerebral palsy, and other disorders that will remain for a lifetime, says Grandjean.

“Fluorides are known to cause brain toxicity and neurological symptoms in humans,” Dr. Grandjean says. He laments that vested interests often manipulate brain-drain research and manufacture uncertainties to wrongly discredit scientists’ conclusions and credibility.

Dr. Grandjean told Ireland's Hot Press that “fluorides are known to cause brain toxicity and neurological symptoms in humans” and fluoride substances were “known by 2012 to cause adverse effects on the human nervous system”.

 

Vested interests caused decades to pass before children were protected from the brain-damaging effects of lead exposure reported in the literature. We unnecessarily lost a generation to lead-induced brain damage, reports Grandjean.

“Having studied brain toxicity for 30 years, and having become more and more concerned about the consequences of chemical brain damage, I realized that I must speak up…brain drain can be easily overlooked, and it may appear to be silent, as it is frequently not accompanied by a formal medical diagnosis,” writes Grandjean.

Babies only have one chance to develop their brains. “Brains need vigorous protection” says Grandjean.

Chemical brain drain should not be disregarded. The average IQ deficit in children exposed to increased levels of fluoride in drinking water was found to correspond to about 7 points – a sizable difference, he says.

When Grandjean’s research team published a careful review of studies (meta-analysis) linking fluoride to children’s lower IQ, worried fluoridation promoters and regulators immediately and incorrectly claimed that only excessive exposures are toxic, the effect is insignificant, decades of fluoridation would have revealed brain deficits (although nobody looked, yet), and that it was probably lead and arsenic that lowered IQ, not fluoride.  Example here

“When such a misleading fuselage is aimed at the authors of a careful meta-analysis of 27 different studies, what would it take to convince critics like that,” asks Grandjean.

After letters from fluoridation protectionists were published in Lancet Neurology criticizing Grandjean’s findings for erroneous reasons, he responded in a letter:

 “The  fact that a trace element has beneficial effects at low doses in specific tissues does not negate the possibility that neurotoxicity might also be occurring, especially at increased levels of exposure.   Indeed, concerns about fluoride toxicity were already raised by a National Research Council expert committee."

Grandjean writes that “emerging evidence on developmental neurotoxicity makes it clear that the timing of exposure is also of great importance, especially during highly vulnerable windows of brain development. Due to the growing evidence on adverse effects."

Grandjean’s isn’t the first to indict fluoride as neurotoxic. Valdez-Jimenez, et al. review of brain/fluoride studies concludes “The prolonged ingestion of fluoride may cause significant damage to health and particularly to the nervous system,” according to their  review of studies ( Neurologia (June 2011).

The research team reports, “It is important to be aware of this serious problem and avoid the use of toothpaste and items that contain fluoride, particularly in children as they are more susceptible to the toxic effects of fluoride.” 

“Fluoride can be toxic by ingesting one part per million (ppm), and the effects are not immediate, as they can take 20 years or more to become evident,” they write. 

Valdez-Jimenez, et al. describe studies that show fluoride induces changes in the brain’s physical structure and biochemistry which affects the neurological  and mental development of individuals including cognitive processes, such as learning and memory.

“Fluoride is capable of crossing the blood-brain barrier, which may cause biochemical and functional changes in the nervous system during pregnancy, since the fluoride accumulates in brain tissue before birth,” they write.*

Animal studies show fluoride’s toxic brain effects include classic brain abnormalities found in patients with Alzheimer’s disease, Valdez-Jimenez’s team reports.

A different research team (Tang et al.) reported in 2008 that “A qualitative review of the studies found a consistent and strong association between the exposure to fluoride and low IQ.” (Biological Trace Element Research)  

In 2006, the U.S. National Research Council‘s (NRC) expert fluoride panel reviewed fluoride toxicology and concluded, “It’s apparent that fluorides have the ability to interfere with the functions of the brain.” And, “Fluorides also increase the production of free radicals in the brain through several different biological pathways. These changes have a bearing on the possibility that fluorides act to increase the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.” 

On April 12, 2010, Time magazine listed fluoride as one of the “Top Ten Common Household Toxins” and described fluoride as both “neurotoxic and potentially tumorigenic if swallowed.” 

Phyllis Mullenix, Ph.D., was the one of the first U.S. scientist to find evidence that fluoride damages the brain. She published her animal study in a respected peer-reviewed scientific journal in 1995

 and then was fired for doing so. 

Vyvyan Howard, M.D., Ph.D., a prominent fetal toxicologist and past-President of the International Society of Doctors for the Environment, said that current brain/fluoride research convinces him that we should stop water fluoridation.

August 2014, Paul Connett, PhD, co-author of "The Case Against Fluoride," and Exec Director of The Fluoride Action Network, wrote: "As of May 2014, 46 studies have investigated the relationship between fluoride and human intelligence, and 31 studies have investigated the relationship between fluoride and learning/memory in animals. Of these investigations, 39 of the 46 human studies (of over 11,000 children) have found that elevated fluoride exposure is associated with reduced IQ, which is consistent with the fact that 29 of 31 studies have found that fluoride exposure impairs the learning and/or memory capacity of animals.

 

It is very unlikely that 39 studies finding reduced IQ can all be a random fluke. The question, therefore, is less whether fluoride reduces IQ, but at what dose, at what time, and how this dose and time varies based on an individual’s nutritional status, health status, and exposure to other contaminants (e.g., aluminum, arsenic, lead, etc). Of particular concern is fluoride’s effect on children born to women with suboptimal iodine

intake during the time of pregnancy, and/or fluoride’s effects on infants with suboptimal iodine intake themselves."

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