Dr Mercola

 Federal science panel recommends revisions to fluoride-IQ report

ADA calls for transparency, clarity and better research methods

A federal science panel recommended May 4 that a National Toxicology Program draft report and meta-analysis examining potential associations between fluoride and IQ be revised to account for potential study biases and more recent literature.

The NTP Board of Scientific Counselors voted unanimously to adopt the findings and recommendations of a BSC Working Group, convened to determine whether NTP adequately addressed outside questions and criticisms of a systematic literature review examining fluoride exposure and children’s IQ.

The systematic review, which has been underway for several years, is intended to summarize the literature about a potential relationship between fluoride exposure and neurodevelopmental and cognitive health. The original report has been revised several times, a common practice for peer-reviewed papers.

NTP Director Rick Woychik convened the scientific review panel after questioning whether NTP had fully resolved the methodological concerns expressed by several federal agencies and others, including the report’s original peer reviewer, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.

The BSC Working Group report rated nearly 13% of NTP’s responses to comments on the draft state of the science report and more than one third (35.5 percent) of NTP’s responses to comments on the meta-analysis to be inadequate. The panel recommended or suggested revisions to the meta-analysis, based on 57.4 percent of reviewer comments.

Howard Pollick, B.D.S., a fluoridation consultant for the California Department of Public Health, health sciences professor at the University of California San Francisco School of Dentistry and a member of the ADA’s National Fluoridation Advisory Committee, testified on the ADA’s behalf. Dr. Pollick questioned why NTP switched peer reviewers after the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine reported in 2021 that neither of the first two drafts would survive scientific scrutiny without major revision.