Letter: No need to dose children with fluoride
To the editor:
In response to the letter by Ellen Bianchini (”Benefits of fluoride are well-documented,” Aug. 27), fluoridation’s ineffectiveness and dangers are even better well-documented.
The most precise study ever (Warren, 2009), which attempted to find the optimal dose (as opposed to concentration) needed to reduce tooth decay by monitoring individual kids’ fluoride ingestion, found no clear relationship with the amount of fluoride ingested and tooth decay. They had to conclude the benefit is topical, not systemic. The largest and most expensive U.S. study ever (conducted by the NIDR in the late 1980s) found a negligible difference in tooth decay between children who lived all their lives in fluoridated communities versus non-fluoridated communities (Brunelle and Carlos, 1990). Nor did the authors show that the small difference was statistically significant.
As for safety, professor Philippe Grandjean, PhD (Harvard University) says this: “Fluoride seems to fit in with lead, mercury and other poisons that cause chemical brain drain.”
Evidence for harm is huge and growing daily. More than 100 animal studies show fluoride damages the brain. Thirty animal studies found fluoride impairs learning and memory. Fluoridation promoters claim that these studies are at high doses (such as 5 parts per million). However, it takes five to 10 times as much fluoride in a rodent’s diet to produce the same plasma levels as in humans.
Nevertheless, one study (Varner 1998) dosed animals with only 1 part per million in their water – the amount humans have been getting through fluoridation. After a year, the rats had kidney and brain damage, increased aluminum uptake to the brain, and deposits associated with Alzheimer’s.
Forty-four studies show a relation between modest exposures to fluoride and lowered IQ. In a Harvard meta-analysis of 27 of these studies, 26 showed the children in the “high fluoride” village had a lowered mean IQ of approximately seven IQ points (Choi, 2012). Excluding studies where coal was the source of fluoride, the mean water concentration in these studies was 3.5 ppm which is lower than the EPA’s current safe drinking water standard for fluoride (4 ppm).
Any toxicant requires a factor of 10 to protect against harm to vulnerable populations, such as the very young, the elderly, those with health issues. Fluoridation, dispensed without regard for who gets it or in what quantity, provides no such margin of safety.
Why are there virtually no safety studies conducted in the United States, even though a lengthy report by the National Research Council has recommended them since 2006? Perhaps the powers that be don’t want to be proven wrong on this misguided practice.
In response to the letter by Ellen Bianchini (”Benefits of fluoride are well-documented,” Aug. 27), fluoridation’s ineffectiveness and dangers are even better well-documented.
The most precise study ever (Warren, 2009), which attempted to find the optimal dose (as opposed to concentration) needed to reduce tooth decay by monitoring individual kids’ fluoride ingestion, found no clear relationship with the amount of fluoride ingested and tooth decay. They had to conclude the benefit is topical, not systemic. The largest and most expensive U.S. study ever (conducted by the NIDR in the late 1980s) found a negligible difference in tooth decay between children who lived all their lives in fluoridated communities versus non-fluoridated communities (Brunelle and Carlos, 1990). Nor did the authors show that the small difference was statistically significant.
As for safety, professor Philippe Grandjean, PhD (Harvard University) says this: “Fluoride seems to fit in with lead, mercury and other poisons that cause chemical brain drain.”
Evidence for harm is huge and growing daily. More than 100 animal studies show fluoride damages the brain. Thirty animal studies found fluoride impairs learning and memory. Fluoridation promoters claim that these studies are at high doses (such as 5 parts per million). However, it takes five to 10 times as much fluoride in a rodent’s diet to produce the same plasma levels as in humans.
Nevertheless, one study (Varner 1998) dosed animals with only 1 part per million in their water – the amount humans have been getting through fluoridation. After a year, the rats had kidney and brain damage, increased aluminum uptake to the brain, and deposits associated with Alzheimer’s.
Forty-four studies show a relation between modest exposures to fluoride and lowered IQ. In a Harvard meta-analysis of 27 of these studies, 26 showed the children in the “high fluoride” village had a lowered mean IQ of approximately seven IQ points (Choi, 2012). Excluding studies where coal was the source of fluoride, the mean water concentration in these studies was 3.5 ppm which is lower than the EPA’s current safe drinking water standard for fluoride (4 ppm).
Any toxicant requires a factor of 10 to protect against harm to vulnerable populations, such as the very young, the elderly, those with health issues. Fluoridation, dispensed without regard for who gets it or in what quantity, provides no such margin of safety.
Why are there virtually no safety studies conducted in the United States, even though a lengthy report by the National Research Council has recommended them since 2006? Perhaps the powers that be don’t want to be proven wrong on this misguided practice.
posted by Bill at
10:00 AM
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