New Study: Fluoride Perilous to Babies’ Brains

New Study: Fluoride Perilous to Babies’ Brains

Fluoride exposure during pregnancy is linked to children’s lower IQ at one- to three-years-old, according to Occupational & Environmental Medicine  (March 2018), and at levels commonly found in U.S.

Researchers, Thomas et al., found that, for every increase of 1 milligram per liter of fluoride in pregnant women's urine, their offspring averaged 2.4 points lower IQ scores at age 1-3 years-old.  This finding is statistically significant and was adjusted for confounders.

This builds upon previous research from the same prestigious team funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) showing in utero fluoride levels associated with lower IQ in 4 and 6-12 year-olds (Environmental Health Perspectives, September 2017).

Fluoridation protectionists try, but fail, to scientifically debunk these studies. Environmental Health Perspectives is a leading peer-reviewed journal published by the National Institute of Environmental Health, an NIH division, They were funded by U.S. government grants. The authors are some of the world’s foremost experts who study neurotoxicity from fetal and early childhood exposures.

Fluoridationists, who rarely challenge pro-fluoridation outcomes, often use knee-jerk criticisms to protect  negative fluoride research – even making it up sometimes.

For example, the American Dental Association (ADA) said the researchers “did not adequately address a number of potential confounders.

But the truth is that maternal age, gestational age, birth weight, mother’s education, lead and mercury were all measured.

As an aside, studies the ADA promotes to claim fluoridation is safe and effective almost never control for important confounders such as diet, poverty and total fluoride intake.

So, in direct contradiction to the ADA , one of the most important strengths of these studies is how comprehensively and carefully it did control for potential confounders.

Although fluoridated salt rather than fluoridated water was the main source of fluoride in Mexican pregnant women in these two studies, fluoride intake is similar and applicable to those consuming artificially fluoridated water. For example, the Mexican women's urine fluoride levels are similar to levels found in pregnant women in fluoridated New Zealand (Brough et al. 2015). 

Further, US, Canadian and UK studies recorded a similar range of urine fluoride in its residents as found in the Mexican studies. 

Therefore, the evidence is strong that pregnant US women have similar fluoride intake as Mexican women, whether it comes from artificially or naturally fluoridated water, medicines, is absorbed from dental products, eaten from foods and beverages, especially ocean fish and tea which are high in fluoride, or inhaled from air pollution or ocean mist.

Over 300 studies, 50+ human, now link fluoride to neurological effects – something that was virtually not considered when fluoridation began in 1945. Even the EPA admits that fluoride is a chemical “with substantial evidence of developmental neurotoxicity.”

These studies form the basis of the legal challenge against the EPA by the Fluoride Action Network (FAN)  et al., under the Toxic Substance and Control Act, to ban the deliberate, unnecessary and health-damaging addition of fluoride chemicals into the public’s drinking water supply for the failed effort to reduce tooth decay  Fluoride also taints foods made with that water at home or purchased in supermarkets and restaurants.

Attorney Michael Connett, FAN’s Legal Director says, “The new finding from NIH’s fluoride/IQ study further strengthens the evidence of fluoride’s neurotoxicity.  The fluoride levels at issue in the study are within the range that pregnant women in the U.S. will receive, so the findings are clearly relevant to our ongoing case against the EPA.”

Also of interest - researchers reported that drinking fluoridated water increased lead absorption which is also linked to lower IQ.

Fluoride/brain studies http://FluorideAction.Net/issues/brain

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