Over the past
20 years, the Fluoride Action Network (FAN) has facilitated the removal
of fluoride from the water supplies of hundreds of communities across
North America, Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. This week,
we’re helping FAN raise funds to continue their efforts to eliminate
water fluoridation worldwide
I will match
all donations, dollar for dollar up to $25,000, given to this important
cause during our annual Fluoride Awareness Week
In 2017, the
Fluoride Action Network (FAN) and coalition partners filed a lawsuit
challenging the EPA’s denial of their petition to ban the deliberate
addition of fluoridating chemicals to U.S. drinking water. They
presented their case before the judge June 8, 2020
A landmark U.S.
government-funded study published in 2017 found a strong relationship
between pregnant women’s exposure to fluoride and the subsequent IQ of
their offspring. The higher the fluoride levels of the urine of the
women (a measure of their total exposure to fluoride regardless of
source), the lower the IQ of the children
A 2019 study
found a nearly 300% increase in ADHD prevalence in adolescents in
Canadian communities with fluoridated water supplies, compared to those
living in nonfluoridated communities
As every year during our annual
Fluoride Awareness Week, Fluoride Action Network (FAN) founder Dr. Paul
Connett is here to provide us with a progress update. FAN has been
instrumental in reducing fluoride exposure in North America and in many
countries throughout the world over the past 20 years.
As in previous years, we ask that you consider donating to this
worthy organization that is spearheading the daunting task of
eliminating water fluoridation around the world. As usual, Mercola.com
will match your donation, dollar for dollar, up to $25,000 during
Fluoride Awareness Week.
Fluoride Lowers Children’s IQ
From the very beginning, one of Connett’s driving concerns was the possibility that fluoride might be lowering children’s IQ.
“Two Chinese studies were published in 1995 and 1996, in English.
I was very concerned, and felt strongly that if there was any evidence
that fluoride lowered intelligence of children, then there's no way
you would put benefits to teeth above that and continue water
fluoridation,” Connett says.
Ten years later, in 2006, the National Research Council looked at the toxicology of fluoride.1
At that time, there were six IQ studies and, based on those six
studies along with many animal studies, the NRC concluded that fluoride
did in fact pose a threat to the brain. By 2008, there were 18 such
studies.
In 2012, a distinguished team, partly from Harvard University, did a review2
of 27 IQ studies; 25 from China and two from Iran. Strikingly, 26 of
the studies showed children with higher fluoride exposure had lower IQ
than the children with lower fluoride exposure.
“The bombshell came in 2017. Up to that point, we had about 60
studies that had shown a lowering of IQ, most of them from China, but
also some from India, some from Iran, some from Mexico,” Connett says.
US-Funded Study Confirms Decades’ Long Suspicions
The bombshell study3,4
Connett refers to, known as the “Bashash study” (named after the lead
author, Morteza Bashash, Ph.D.), was funded by the National Institutes
of Health, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and
the Environmental Protection Agency.
It followed pregnant women and their babies for 12 years. They measured the fluoride
in their urine, which reveals total exposure, regardless of the source
or sources, and they found a strong relationship between the fluoride
level in mothers’ urine and IQ scores in their children at the ages of
4, and between 6 and 12.
It’s important to realize that it’s not the concentration of
fluoride in the water (measured in mg per liter) that is significant
for health. What matters is the dose you get in milligrams per day, and
the dosage (mg/day divided by the individual’s body weight), and these
depend on a variety of fluctuating factors.
“The NIH is a parent of the Public Health Service, so they've
been promoting fluoride for years and years (since 1950). So, I believe
they put a lot of money into this study thinking that it would prove,
once and for all, that crazy people like me and others were absolutely
wrong about the notion that fluoride lowers IQ in children.
But lo and behold, they gave us very, very strong evidence that
it is. And that the most susceptible age, as far as fluoride's impact
on the brain, is during fetal development.
It turns out the placenta does not protect the fetus from
fluoride, and, as you know, up to about six months of age, the
blood-brain barrier is not fully formed in the baby. So, the fetus is
very susceptible to this impact of fluoride.”
The first response of the American Dental Association was that the
findings didn’t apply to the United States, since it was done in Mexico
City. However, this ignored the fact that human beings are human
beings, by measuring fluoride in the urine they had a measure of total
exposure, regardless of the source. It really doesn’t matter if the
fluoride comes from water, other beverages, food or toothpaste.
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Canadian Researchers Confirm ‘Bombshell’ Results
In 2019, the NIH study was replicated in Canada,5
and they too found that higher fluoride levels in maternal urine were
associated with lower IQ in their offspring. The only major difference
was that based on maternal urine levels only boys appeared to be
affected, not the girls. But when the mothers’ fluoride exposure was
calculated from ingestion (i.e. from food and beverages) there was a
relationship between that and the children’s IQ for both boys and
girls,
“Now, this study, unlike the first one, the Bashash study, got a certain amount of coverage,” Connett says.
“[It] was published in the journal of the American Medical Association,
Pediatrics. That's one of the major pediatrics journals in the world,
and the editors of this journal went to extreme lengths.
They knew this was controversial. Hats off for them to take it
on. They knew it was going to be consequential, so they doubled up on
the peer review process, they double checked the statistics, so they
were confident when they launched it. They even ran an editorial saying
the steps they'd taken.
They had two of their editors, the editor of JAMA in total and
the editor of JAMA Pediatrics did a 20-minute podcast explaining how
astounding the results were. They said, ‘Oh, we had no idea that
fluoride caused any problems to health.’ I don't know what they'd been
reading. But anyway … it was a bombshell for them to suddenly find that
fluoride could be damaging the brain of the fetus.
They also ran an editorial from David Bellinger, one of the
world's experts on lead's neurotoxicity, and he said ‘The measurements
here are akin to what's happening with lead.’ In other words, it’s
very, very serious, and that got a lot of coverage around the world.
But the other side was organized and they quickly got some
‘experts’ — none of them actually experts on fluoride or toxicology or
neurotoxicity — who said all the right things to dampen people's
concern about this study.”
Two Other Important Studies
“There are four studies that people need to know about,” Connett
says. To learn more about each, see Connett’s video commentaries on
FluorideALERT.org FAN.tv page. Aside from the two already mentioned, the two other ones are:
The Riddell study, published in 2019, found a nearly 300%
increase in ADHD prevalence in adolescents in Canadian communities with
fluoridated water supplies, compared to those living in non-fluoridated
communities. “Science never stops,” Connett says. “You have to
entertain the notion that an ugly fact can destroy a beautiful theory,
in this particular case, we got a lot of ugly facts, but the big one is
the fact that fluoride could damage children's brains.”
The Till study, which compared the IQ of children who had been
bottle fed as babies in fluoridated communities (and thus would have
gotten fluoridated water in their formula) versus non-fluoridated
communities. Here, they found a large IQ difference.
FAN Lawsuit Against EPA on Fluoride Underway
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 individuals, filed a petition6,7
calling on the EPA to ban the deliberate addition of fluoridating
chemicals to U.S. drinking water under Section 21 of the Toxic
Substances Control Act (TSCA).
As explained by Connett, the TSCA allows citizens and
nongovernmental organizations to petition the EPA to remove toxic
substances found to pose a threat (an unreasonable risk) either to the
general population or a subset of that population.
The petition was made on the grounds that a large body of research
demonstrates fluoride is neurotoxic at doses within the range now seen
in fluoridated communities, and included over 2,500 pages of scientific
documentation detailing these health risks.
The EPA denied the petition8
February 27, 2017, on the grounds that it had failed to present “a
scientifically defensible basis” to conclude that anyone had in fact
suffered neurotoxic harm as a result of fluoride exposure. In response,
FAN and its coalition partners filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District
Court for the Northern District of California, legally challenging the
EPA’s denial of their petition.
This interview was taped June 2, 2020. FAN was scheduled to begin
arguments in front of a judge June 8. FAN will explain the
neurotoxicity of fluoride shown in these and other studies, and then
the EPA’s industry experts, paid consultants who have also defended
glyphosate and other toxins, will present their evidence. (see FAN’s web
site FluorideAlert.org for a summary of the trial)
“But we have, for our lawsuit … some of the leading experts on
neurotoxicity in the world,” Connett says, “including a couple that
were involved in the studies I've been talking about.” That includes
Bruce Lanphear, the EPA’s go-to person for information about the
neurotoxicity of lead. Lanphear worked with Till on the JAMA Pediatrics
article and the bottle feeding study listed above. Howard Hu, lead
author of the Bashash study, is another expert FAN witness, as is
Philippe Grandjean.
“I am very optimistic. [The EPA] doesn’t have the science. We do.
And not only do we have the science, but we have some of the world's
best experts testifying for us. So, unless these crafty lawyers for the
EPA are able to muddy the waters, I think we'll have no trouble in
demonstrating three things: One, that the preponderance of evidence
that fluoride is neurotoxic is overwhelming.
Second, that it is a risk at the levels at which we add fluoride
to the water. And thirdly, it's an unreasonable risk. Because even if
your number one focus was reducing tooth decay, there are other ways of
delivering fluoride, instead of this ridiculous notion of putting it
in the drinking water and forcing it on your whole population.
I think we can demonstrate those three things. And I'm happy to
tell you that my son, who started our webpage in 2000 and developed the
largest health database in the world, bigger than other fluoridating
governments, by the way, is going to be the lawyer fighting this case,”
Connett says.
If victorious, the EPA will likely appeal, as this is a classic
stall tactic. “There's no agency in the United States that is better at
dragging its feet on controversial issues,” Connett says.
“They dragged their feet for over 18 years on the reassessment of
dioxin, an issue I was very close to, and they still didn't resolve
the issue. They're very subject to industry pressure, and their way of
resolving issues is just delay, delay, delay.
But, I do believe that if a federal court, having heard both
sides, declares that fluoride poses an unnecessary risk, an unreasonable
risk to the developing brain of our children, that that news will
ricochet around the fluoridating world — Australia, New Zealand,
Ireland, Canada, Israel, Malaysia, and a few other countries where they
still fluoridate. It's going to have a huge impact.
And I think the citizens will be able to use this as ammunition
to say to their health departments, ‘Come on. Why are you doing this?
Why are you doing this when you've got this scientific information …
done by top notch scientists. Why on earth would you continue this
practice when you know that if you want fluoride, you can simply brush
it on your teeth and spit it out. What is your rationale for continuing
this?
By the same token, to the professional bodies, to the AMA, the
ADA, the APHA and all those other organizations that have endorsed
fluoridation for years and years and years, why would you continue to
support this? Why would you reveal to the public that you have no
scientific credibility?
That you don't read the science, that you don't keep up with the
science on an issue like this? When you're going to the public and
saying again and again and again that fluoridation is safe and
effective, when you've got this evidence right there in front of you?
One more thing … Possibly the most important agency for reviewing
the toxicology of toxic substances is the National Toxicology Program
(NTP). Back in 2016, FAN asked the NTP to do a systematic review of the
neurotoxicity of fluoride. This was before the court case and before
we went to court.
After three and a half years they came back, having reviewed all
the animal data and the human data, and in their draft they said,
‘Based upon the literature, the presumption is that fluoride is a
neurotoxic substance. Based upon studies done on children in several
different countries, the presumption is that it is neurotoxic.’
Not that it's definite; but you would have to presume, based upon
all the literature, that this is a neurotoxic substance. So, that’s a
huge vindication for our case. But, because it's a draft and not a
final version, we can't actually use it in the court case. Still, this
is very useful for us going forward, in addition to whatever the court
rules.”
Ending Water Fluoridation Still Met With Strong Resistance
While FAN has successfully ended water fluoridation in many areas,
it’s still very difficult. One of the reasons for this is because those
who want it to continue always point to reviews by government agencies
“which, as bogus as they are and unscientific as they are, carry a lot
of weight,” Connett says.
In Ireland, they refer to the expert committee. In New Zealand, they
refer to the ministry of health and in Australia to the National Health
and Medical Research Council. In the United States, they refer to the
Centers of Disease Control and Prevention.
All of these agencies have promoted water fluoridation and are not
good judges of whether there are problems or not. Hopefully, a court
win against the EPA will facilitate and speed up the process of getting
fluoride out of drinking water. A win would also set another important
precedent:
“We've been able to bring this to court under the Toxic
Substances and Control Act, which has a clause [stating] that any group
or individual can petition the EPA to remove, to ban, any particular
use of a particular chemical in the United States if they can show it's
an unreasonable risk to the population, or even a subset of the
population.
We … along with Food & Water Watch are the first groups to
ever do this. So, it's establishing a very important precedent, which is
really worrying the chemical industry. It’s a big concern of ours,
because behind the scenes I'm sure they're trying to muddy the waters
in every way they can. But it's a huge precedent. I hope that our
victory will also shoot adrenaline into the veins of all these other
[health safety] groups …”
Another Fluoride-Related Issue To Be Tackled
In our interview, Connett also discusses the fluoride pollution
released during recycling of lithium ion batteries, such as those used
in electric cars. Lithium ion batteries contain fluorinated polymers
like polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF) and an electrolyte called lithium
hexafluorophosphate (LiPF6).
When heated during the recycling process, these fluorinated
compounds break down to produce hydrogen fluoride, and many fluorinated
byproducts which are toxic and difficult to capture. Like PFOS, these
chemicals stick around for so long they’re known as “forever
chemicals.”
As it happens, a lithium ion battery incinerator is being built near
Connett’s home, across the road from a residential area and adjacent
to a little league baseball field. “It is an absolutely insane,
unethical siting,” Connett says, noting that there really is no safe
place for such facilities. It’s the recycling process itself that needs
to be modified, which is what Connett is fighting for now.
“What this has done is fortuitous. It has brought together
nearly all the strands of our activism. I've had 35 years fighting
incineration and dioxins [and] 24 years fighting fluoridation. Now
we're meeting hydrogen fluoride and fluorinated by-products in spades.
At the very least the problem will be: What do you do with the sodium
fluoride that's left over in the effluent, the waste water?
I hope someone doesn't suggest putting it in the drinking water.
Because also in that waste water you'll have a PFAS, a polyfluorinated
alkyl substance (used in some of the batteries), and my wife has spent
many, many years maintaining a database on these PFAS … She's been
concerned with that for a long time. So, we've been able to draw on
three different strands of our activism to help our local community.”
Avoid Fluoride to Optimize Your Health
Eliminating water fluoridation will go a long way toward protecting
the health of all people, but especially children. Sacrificing
children’s brain function for a theoretical benefit of less tooth decay is unconscionable.
Aside from making sure you do not drink fluoridated water, or use
fluoridated water to mix infant formula, to reduce your exposure, avoid
drinking excessive amounts of tea, which tends to be high in fluoride.
“Mix it up,” Connett says. “If you must drink tea, then
drink tea, drink coffee, drink herbal tea. Mix it around. Not too much
tea. Also, avoid animal bones. Don't eat the bones from sardines and
pilchards. Don't eat the bones from chicken. Avoid mechanically deboned
meat.”
Call to Action — Donate Today!
Again, for more details on the four studies Connett highlights in this interview, see his video commentaries on FAN.tv page. There you can also find a webinar lecture by FAN’s senior scientist, Chris Neurath, in which he explains the neurotoxicity of fluoride. To help spread the word, you can print out a FAN pamphlet to share with family, friends and local community bulletin boards.
In closing, if you’re concerned about the health effects of
fluoride, please support FAN with your tax-deductible donation today.
Mercola.com will match your donation, dollar for dollar, up to $25,000
during Fluoride Awareness Week.
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