NEW YORK: There is little doubt that developmental neurotoxicity is a serious risk associated with elevated fluoride exposure, whether due to community water fluoridation, natural fluoride release from soil minerals, or tea consumption, especially when the exposure occurs during early [brain] development, writes Harvard Professor and researcher Phillipe Grandjean, MD, in a review of recent fluoride neurotoxicology research (Environmental Health Dec 2019); reports the New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation, Inc. (NYSCOF).
Fluoridation began without brain-safety evidence seven decades ago. Today, 400+ studies link fluoride to neurological effects - providing evidence that fluoride can be perilous to babies' brains, especially.
Grandjean, who studies how environmental chemicals affect children's brain development, says fluoridation benefits appear minimal. But, the evidence base for fluoride's brain damage greatly expanded and is likely underestimated, he explains.
The time has come for health agencies in the US and elsewhere to revisit the fluoride regulations and make it a priority to protect the brains of the next generation, he writes. Elevations in human exposures [from multiple sources] may well exceed the [fluoride] levels that human metabolism can successfully accommodate.
Fluoridation produced a fluoridated food supply and lucrative marketing of hundreds of fluoridated dental products. The result fluoride overdose (dental fluorosis) grew in severity and prevalence.
That dental fluorosis is merely of cosmetic concern is unconvincing. Fluorosis can be a useful biomarker for fluoride's brain exposure, Grandjean suggests.
Several studies, specifically, associate dental fluorosis with children's intellectual deficits (e.g. Yu, et al.).
The view that fluoride is primarily a developmental neurotoxicant means that fluoride - an element like lead, mercury, and arsenic - can adversely affect children's brain development at exposures much below that of adults, he cautions.
When environmental chemicals affect developing brains, children risk cognitive deficits, learning disabilities, ADHD, autism, and other disorders that remain for a lifetime, explains Grandjean in his recent book. He laments that vested interests often manipulate credible chemical brain-drain research to manufacture unfounded uncertainties to wrongly discredit respected scientists' conclusions and credibility.
This is a common tactic of fluoridationists, says attorney Paul Beeber, NYSCOF President. Few lobbied legislators understand fluoridation science. Lawmakers should err on the side of caution - not ignorance or from political pressure.
Studies already link fluoride to ADHD, lower IQ, Autism, poor memory, dementia, and Alzheimer's Disease.
