Ongoing Neurotoxicity Studies from FAN

December 5, 2016  

There is no doubt that our fantastic FAN supporters like a challenge - especially challenges that promise to double their donations. By Sunday evening we had raised $15,136 from 63 donors.  This response has so impressed our super-angel that he has increased his challenge. All donations over the next two days will be doubled until we have reached $21,000. 

To add further excitement and fun to the proceedings a second super-angel has focused on reaching our other goal of getting 1000 donors -he will donate $1000 for each 100 donors we get up to 500, then $2000 for each 100 donors up to 900 and then a whopping $7,000 if and when we get to 1000 donors!  
More good news!  Chelsea Green has donated 10 of our books to support this fundraiser. So we will be sending signed copies of these to donors, #100, #200, #300...#1000. 

So supporters at any donation level can be part of an effort that could raise another $20,000. To put this into perspective the highest number we have ever had was 802 in 2014.

We cannot overstate the importance of the number of donors we reach. This number is what foundations look at when assessing which groups are worthy of their support. So all donations are important to our cause of ending fluoridation - both large and small your donation can male a difference to our efforts.

To make a tax-deductible donation to the Fluoride Action Network, a project of the American Environmental Health Studies Project, you can either:

• Donate online using our secure server.  If you should experience difficulty in donating at our secure server, please call Network For Good at 1-888-284-7978 and press option 3 to make your donation over the phone.

• Or by check – please make checks payable to Fluoride Action Network and send to: FAN, c/o Connett, 104 Walnut Street, Binghamton NY 13905

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Ask FAN Anything

This Saturday, December 10, at 5pm (eastern time) please join the Fluoride Action Network staff and team for this month’s International Fluoride Free Teleconference.  The call is free and will provide a year-in-review of the fluoride issue, as well as provide an opportunity for supporters to ask the FAN team questions. So please plan on joining us for this opportunity to interact with fellow campaigners from around the world and have your questions about fluoride and the Fluoride Action Network answered by the experts.   

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Ongoing Neurotoxicity Studies 

FAN's relentless effort to get the U.S. government to take fluoride's neurotoxicity seriously is beginning to pay off. Hitherto, for many years, American regulatory and research agencies have failed to finance studies seeking to reproduce the many studies undertaken abroad that have found harm to the brain (over 300) but that is changing:  

1. There is a new National Institute of Health funded fluoride/brain study.  Our Canadian friends are extremely excited by this research funding to Christine Till and Ashley Malin, the co-authors of the important study that found a correlation between fluoridation and increased ADHD rates in the U.S. This is what Robert Flemingof the national group Canadians Opposed to Fluoridation (COF-COF) wrote: “This is possibly the most important recently evolving development in water fluoridation to date.”

2. A new rodent study that the National Toxicology Program (NTP) is in the process of completing using low levels of fluoride exposure. We have concerns over the consultation process that NTP had prior to when this study was undertaken, see “Vigilance Still Needed” at end of bulletin.

3. Dr. Jaqueline Calderón Hernandez, from Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí in Mexico is currently working with Dr. Diana Rocha-Amador on three U.S. government funded studies by the National Institute of Environmental Health Studies (NIEHS) on fluoride neurotoxicity: (1) an examination of the cognitive effects from fluoride in drinking water, (2) estimating the global burden of disease of mild mental retardation associated with environmental fluoride exposure, and (3) investigating the impact of in utero exposure to fluoride (via drinking water) on cognitive development delay in children.  Dr. Diana Rocha-Amador is also examining the impact of fluoride on thyroid hormone levels in pregnant women. She also published a fluoride/IQ study in 2007.

4. Dr. Philippe Grandjean (Harvard School of Public Health) is leading an ongoing study of fluoride and intelligence among a group of schoolchildren in China. Grandjean published the preliminary results of this study in the January-February 2015 issue of Neurotoxicology & Teratology. (Choi 2015). 

5. An NIEHS-funded human epidemiological study titled “Prenatal and Childhood Exposure to Fluoride and Neurodevelopment,” is investigating the relationship between fluoride and IQ among a cohort of children in Mexico. A summary of the study is available online.

6. An NIEHS-funded animal study, titled “Effects of Fluoride on Behavior in Genetically Diverse Mouse Models,” is investigating fluoride’s effects on behavior and whether these effects differ based on the genetic strain of the mouse. The principal investigator of the study is Pamela Den Besten. A summary of her study is available online.

7. The NIH is funding a study investigating the impact of fluoride on the timing of puberty among children in Mexico. This study is pertinent to the assessment of fluoride’s impact on the pineal gland’s regulation of melatonin. The preliminary results of the study were presented at the 2014 ISEE conference and can be accessed online.

Historical footnote:

When Phyllis Mullenix et al published their groundbreaking animal study on fluoride and animal behavior in 1995, she was fired from her position as chair of the toxicology department at the Forsythe dental center. That sent a chilling message to US researchers - research on fluoride toxicity is a "no go area." Now with the U.S. government funding several important studies this should encourage other Western researchers to get involved.  

Vigilance still needed 

We still have to be vigilant to make sure that those determined to protect the fluoridation program don’t skewer the results. For example, it is worrying that the NTP specified that an animal study should be conducted at 0.7 ppm - which is a ridiculous provision for an animal study on fluoride. For example, it is well known that rats need a much higher dose of fluoride in their water to reach the same plasma levels in humans. Moreover, it is standard practice in toxicology to use much higher doses in animals order to tease out effects. To conduct experiments on animals at expected human doses would require a huge number of animals, which would be cost prohibitive.

Fundraising Team
Fluoride Action Network

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