Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Exposing children to high levels of fluoride is “consistently associated” with lower IQ, and potentially other neurodevelopmental issues, according to a report by the National Toxicology Program (NTP).
In 2016, NTP initiated a systematic review of scientific literature to determine links between fluoride and cognition. On Aug. 21, it released a report outlining its findings. A total of 72 studies examined in the report analyzed the impact of fluoride exposure on children’s IQ. Sixty-four of these studies showed an “inverse association between estimated fluoride exposure and IQ in children,” indicating that higher exposure was correlated with lower IQ and vice versa.
“This review concludes, with moderate confidence, that higher estimated fluoride exposures … are consistently linked to lower IQ in children,” the report stated. NTP is a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
NTP defined high exposure as consumption of water with fluoride concentrations exceeding the 1.5 mg/L limit set by the World Health Organization.
The permissible limits in the United States differ. While the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has established a threshold of 0.7 mg/L for fluoride presence in drinking water (including naturally occurring and added fluoride, or fluoridation), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has a limit of 2 mg/L.
As of April 2020, community water systems in the United States provided water containing 1.5 mg/L or more of naturally occurring fluoride to 0.59 percent of the population, approximately 1.9 million people, according to NTP. Around 1 million people received water with 2 mg/L or more of naturally occurring fluoride.
“There is also some evidence that fluoride exposure is associated with other neurodevelopmental and cognitive effects in children; although, due to the diversity of the outcomes, there is low confidence in the literature regarding these other effects,” the report noted.
The studies on children’s IQ examined in the report were carried out in 10 countries, including Canada and Mexico. No studies from the United States were included in the review.
Fluoride is a mineral that prevents and repairs damage to the teeth caused by bacteria. In 1945, the United States introduced a community water fluoridation program, which has been deemed a successful public health initiative.
However, concerns arose that children and pregnant women might be ingesting excessive amounts of fluoride due to exposure from various sources, such as water, beverages, toothpaste, and teas, according to NTP. This prompted the program to conduct the present study.
Fluoride Debate
The NTP report comes after a study published in May that focused on mother-child pairs from Los Angeles and concluded that prenatal fluoride exposure was linked to “neurobehavioral problems” in children.
Ashley Malin, the lead researcher of the study, stated that the results suggest fluoride could negatively impact fetal brain development. She highlighted that there is “no known benefit” of fluoride consumption for fetuses.
“We discovered that every 0.68 milligram per liter increase in fluoride levels in the urine of pregnant women was linked to nearly double the likelihood of children scoring in the clinical or borderline clinical range for neurobehavioral issues at age 3, based on their mother’s observations,” she explained.
In a May 22 statement, the American Dental Association (ADA) mentioned that the study was not “nationally representative” and did not measure the “actual consumption of fluoridated water.”
“The JAMA study should be viewed as exploratory. The ADA has not encountered any peer-reviewed research that would alter its longstanding recommendation to the public to brush twice daily with fluoride toothpaste and consume optimally fluoridated water,” the organization commented.
“Tooth decay is one of the most common chronic illnesses among children. There are decades of research and practical experience supporting the safety and efficacy of community water fluoridation in reducing cavities by 25 percent in both children and adults.”
The ADA endorsed community water fluoridation as a “safe, beneficial, and cost-effective” method to prevent dental cavities.
Another study from January revealed that many parents were exposing children to high levels of fluoride. When parents used toothpaste for children under 24 months, the fluoride dose was 5.9 to 7.2 times greater than the recommended amount, as per the study.
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