EPA Must Address Fluoridated Water's Risk To Children's IQs, US Judge Rules (reuters.com) 139
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: A federal judge in California has ordered the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to strengthen regulations for fluoride in drinking water, saying the compound poses an unreasonable potential risk to children at levels that are currently typical nationwide. U.S. District Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco on Tuesday sided (PDF) with several advocacy groups, finding the current practice of adding fluoride to drinking water supplies to fight cavities presented unreasonable risks for children's developing brains.
Chen said the advocacy groups had established during a non-jury trial that fluoride posed an unreasonable risk of harm sufficient to require a regulatory response by the EPA under the Toxic Substances Control Act. "The scientific literature in the record provides a high level of certainty that a hazard is present; fluoride is associated with reduced IQ," wrote Chen, an appointee of Democratic former President Barack Obama. But the judge stressed he was not concluding with certainty that fluoridated water endangered public health. [...] The EPA said it was reviewing the decision. "The court's historic decision should help pave the way towards better and safer fluoride standards for all," Michael Connett, a lawyer for the advocacy groups, said in a statement on Wednesday.
Chen said the advocacy groups had established during a non-jury trial that fluoride posed an unreasonable risk of harm sufficient to require a regulatory response by the EPA under the Toxic Substances Control Act. "The scientific literature in the record provides a high level of certainty that a hazard is present; fluoride is associated with reduced IQ," wrote Chen, an appointee of Democratic former President Barack Obama. But the judge stressed he was not concluding with certainty that fluoridated water endangered public health. [...] The EPA said it was reviewing the decision. "The court's historic decision should help pave the way towards better and safer fluoride standards for all," Michael Connett, a lawyer for the advocacy groups, said in a statement on Wednesday.
I never thought I'd read these words... (Score:4, Funny)
In the movie Dr. Strangelove, General Ripper claimed that water fluoridation was destroying “our precious bodily fluids”—a reference to the claim that water fluoridation was a conspiracy designed to weaken US willpower and make the country susceptible to a Communist takeover.
Link to paper: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov] =D
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It's not really a scientific paper, it's a kind of editorial, written by a historian and funded by the humanities research council. Journals, including scientific journals, publish editorials, opinion pieces, tributes, etc. along with regular articles.
That doesn't mean it's not true, but you get to use more fuzzy language and reviewers aren't likely to string you up for making unsupported claims.
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>What's the humanities research council?
> This paper was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
You answered your own question. Seems rather obvious really...
Re: I never thought I'd read these words... (Score:2)
No, he asked "who" and and answered with "what", there's a difference.
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You answered your own question. Canada has three research councils: Canadian Institute for Health Research - health; National Science and Engineering Research Council - science and engineering; Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council - social sciences and humanities.
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...in a peer-reviewed scientific paper:
In the movie Dr. Strangelove, General Ripper claimed that water fluoridation was destroying “our precious bodily fluids”—a reference to the claim that water fluoridation was a conspiracy designed to weaken US willpower and make the country susceptible to a Communist takeover.
Link to paper: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov] =D
Purity of essence!
Re: I never thought I'd read these words... (Score:2)
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There's also plenty of other pollutants, common in the USA, that inhibit cognitive development, e.g. the lead in their water supply.
Re: I never thought I'd read these words... (Score:2)
We've been fluoridating drinking water since 1945, over 75 years ago, NOW it's a problem?
Are well-water drinkers 'smarter' than those that drink city (fluoridated) water? Not sure how you could prove that with the number of variables outside fluoridation between the two populations...
Address it ehh? (Score:2)
"This is stupid and false, and while we're addressing it, we're not going to change our policies based on stupidity" There we go.
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Do we know that it's false? It could be a minor effect, or there could be a threshold. We do know that excess fluoridation causes teeth to become brittle (and unsightly). So there definitely SHOULD be limits. What they are ... well, that's less clear to me.
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or there could be a threshold.
No, there could not. Seriously. Stop inventing things.
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On what basis do you deny that there could be a threshold? Many biochemical things DO have thresholds. (In fact, fluoride making teeth brittle is one of them. Small amounts don't do that.)
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You need to ask? You are _incompetent_ and not conversant with the state of the art. Not my job to fix that
Let's get this straight... (Score:3, Insightful)
You'd think the EPA would already be biased towards excess caution, because the more they regulate, the more they're seen to be "doing something". Like the way auditors always, always find something to justify their existence, it'd be odd for the EPA to be letting things slide... at least if there's actual science telling them they should regulate more.
The opinions of non-experts should be weighted much lower than those of experts.
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Most people will let sleeping dogs lie until forced otherwise. The EPA is not only *not* immune to politics (the real kind, not the red vs. blue kind) but exposed to them more than most and so even if they know there's something worth looking into, why would they spend their budget and their political capital in chasing it down when the harm might be mostly to them than the people who are currently slightly/moderately/severely over/under fluoridated? And not even for the organisation as a whole, if the org
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This is because of the NIH study.
https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/what... [nih.gov]
You don't need to be a scientist to recognize the scientific consensus just got shattered. Until the witch hunt can get the NIH scientists painted as perpetuating bad science, pretending there is an overwhelming consensus is plainly untenable.
There is a lot of similarity between this case and lab leak theory. In both cases there is an underlying "you can't handle the truth" motivation on part of a lot of scientists, which causes friction beca
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Who said judges are smart or capable of doing a good job?
Glad they're finally doing this (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, good. I'm glad that after 75 years of water fluoridation someone is finally looking at the health effects. You'd really think that maybe someone would have looked at it before but I guess they haven't. Go figure.
I mean, it's not like we have ready-made test and control groups. Say, kids and adults who've spend their entire lives drinking fluoridated water, and other kids and adults who've spent their entire lives in rural areas with private wells. If we had that we could just compare the two groups
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Well, good. I'm glad that after 75 years of water fluoridation someone is finally looking at the health effects. You'd really think that maybe someone would have looked at it before but I guess they haven't. Go figure.
I'm guessing they have.
I mean, it's not like we have ready-made test and control groups. Say, kids and adults who've spend their entire lives drinking fluoridated water, and other kids and adults who've spent their entire lives in rural areas with private wells. If we had that we could just compare the two groups and see if either one has, on average, a markedly higher IQ than the other. Alas. We may never know the answer.
Ok... now control for the effects of growing up on a farm vs city or suburb, the education available to those kids, the differing genetics between families who live on farms and those who don't, the wildly inconsistent natural levels of fluoride in those wells, etc, etc.
There's a reason that even after looking at multiple studies they could only come to the determination with moderate confidence [nih.gov].
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You'd really think that maybe someone would have looked at it before but I guess they haven't. Go figure.
That someone finds something new now doesn't mean that no one has looked in the past. In fact the toxicity and health effects were very actively studied before it was added to drinking water. That's also why there was a national guideline drawn up for maximum safe dosage. Even the WHO has weighed in on an international recommendation based on studies over the years and their recommendation provides citations of the effects and test of fluoride on health back to before World War 2.
I mean, it's not like we have ready-made test and control groups. Say, kids and adults who've spend their entire lives drinking fluoridated water
Did we have those before we
So begins the idiofication of regulation (Score:3)
Now, we are letting judges be the last word in regulation instead of people who have spent their life studying the issue.
Good job Supreme Court!
Scientific knowledge advances, but... (Score:2)
...it doesn't mean that the crazies are right, they're just crazy
Many years ago, scientists noticed a pattern where naturally occurring fluoride correlated with lower rates of tooth decay
It seemed reasonable to add fluoride at the time, since no obvious adverse effects were seen in areas with natural fluoride
The crazies invented all sorts of wild nonsense to oppose fluoridation, none of it based on accurate science
Years later, researchers have found evidence that fluoride can be harmful
This is how science w
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How Does He Expect That to Happen? (Score:2)
I thought the Supreme Court's ruling on Chevron deference meant that executive agencies are virtually powerless to set regulations. If that's the case, the EPA would have to wait for the geniuses in Congress to codify the exact amount of fluoride allowed in the water and even then, all that the EPA could do is enforce that legislation.
Aileen Cannon at it again? (Score:2)
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How do we decide? (Score:2)
'I care if the impact is better or worse than the benefit to our dental health.'
What is the basis for our decision?
Why do we drive cars? (Score:2)
We've got decades of research showing fluoride is harmless in small doses and a few studies warning us that some communities have high levels of it in their water supply already. The solution is to spend more money on water testing instead of just dumping in fluoride.
The issue with this is, of course, money. Just like how I can't have public tr
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What is government authority to force medicate people? Maybe each person should make their own decision, rather than government mandate of chemicals in water supply.
The Supreme Court. Jacobson v Massachusetts [constitutioncenter.org]. Also, school districts require children to be vaccinated before entering the school system.
Any more questions? Or are you going to come up with excuses why these facts aren't relevant to your question.
Re: How do we decide? (Score:2)
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"the power of the public to guard itself against imminent danger"
I doubt they would have considered caries an imminent danger to the public.
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Found the moron.
Re: How do we decide? (Score:2)
Ground level truth (Score:2, Interesting)
A long time ago, someone noticed that if there wasn't enough fluoride naturally present in the water, populations had drastically worse dental health so we started adding a bit where we found the levels deficient. Much like we discovered that if you don't have enough iodine in your diet you get goiters and other health issues, so we started iodizing salt.
I don't care if there's a tiny effect on average IQ when we add fluoride to our drinking water; I care if the impact is better or worse than the benefit to our dental health.
Shouldn't you be caring about the strength of effects on overall mortality?
Why is dental health more important than IQ?
We know that IQ is responsible for about 40% of success in our society(*). I'd like to see figures that show rate conditionalized on having cavities.
Additionally, I was told once by a dentist that caries is transmitted from the parents, mother specifically by sharing food, to the newborn infant. In cases where the mother is careful and the infant doesn't get infected, the newborn's immune s
Re: Ground level truth (Score:4, Informative)
Why is dental health more important than IQ?
Dental health, and in particular poor dental lm has all sorts of knock on effects on other health. Heart health, mental health, general nutrition, and many many other things are tied to the condition of our teeth.
This is why Canada is in the process of rolling out public dental care.
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Dental health, and in particular poor dental lm has all sorts of knock on effects on other health.
So does low IQ.
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This is not about low IQ. This is about a tiny reduction in average IQ, which may well be a testing artifact. Maybe get some minimal information before shooting your mouth off? Naa, that would be too much to ask.
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Maybe get some minimal information before shooting your mouth off? Naa, that would be too much to ask.
Is there a test to see how much of an arsehole a person is, and what drug you took too much of to always act like one?
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I am just pointing out that you are acting like an asshole. If you cannot stand that, calling me one is the typical response. For a 5 year old.
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And poor health lowers IQ.
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You know how to improve dental health even more? Universal healthcare including free trips to the dents every 6 months, rather than reserving that right to people with jobs where the benefits include a dental plan - a meme so common that Americans even poke fun at themselves in movies for it.
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You know how to improve dental health even more? Universal healthcare including free trips to the dents every 6 months, rather than reserving that right to people with jobs where the benefits include a dental plan - a meme so common that Americans even poke fun at themselves in movies for it.
Um, Medicaid already does that ... for children in all states, for adults in many states [chcs.org].
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Um, Medicaid already does that ... for children in all states, for adults in many states [chcs.org].
So a few things,
a) dental decay is a problem throughout your entire life. Focusing on children doesn't help anyone.
b) not everyone qualifies for medicaid.
c) the document you linked gives details about adult coverage per state. Aside from the caveat at the start which already excludes some people, most of the states list emergency medical care, or limited care only.
So no medicaid doesn't do that, they fail to reach even a minimum expectation.
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A long time ago, someone noticed that if there wasn't enough fluoride naturally present in the water, populations had drastically worse dental health so we started adding a bit where we found the levels deficient. Much like we discovered that if you don't have enough iodine in your diet you get goiters and other health issues, so we started iodizing salt.
Half of the salt purchased isn't iodized. People have a choice.
"When weighted by sales volume in ounces or per item, 53% contained iodized salt."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
I don't care if there's a tiny effect on average IQ when we add fluoride to our drinking water
I do.
I care if the impact is better or worse than the benefit to our dental health.
Those concerned about their dental health should try toothpaste and floss.
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Insufficient - unless you use fluoridated toothpaste.
What else would you use? Is there even such thing as non-fluoridated toothpaste? If so where can you buy it?
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> What else would you use? Is there even such thing as non-fluoridated toothpaste? If so where can you buy it?
Of course there is. You buy it at almost all the places you buy fluoridated toothpaste. Target, CVS, Amazon, Walmart, etc.
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Some research suggests very high percentage HAP toothpaste is as effective as fluoride.
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A long time ago, someone noticed that if there wasn't enough fluoride naturally present in the water, populations had drastically worse dental health so we started adding a bit where we found the levels deficient. Much like we discovered that if you don't have enough iodine in your diet you get goiters and other health issues, so we started iodizing salt.
I don't care if there's a tiny effect on average IQ when we add fluoride to our drinking water; I care if the impact is better or worse than the benefit to our dental health.
This - and if it has a detrimental effect on IQ, why didn't they observe that these people had great teeth, as well as being stupid?
Seems like a great study. A group of people whose children are raised without anf fluoride in their diets (gonna have to make certain there is none in their water source, and a group whose children had fluoridated water. In the end, the children who partook of fluoride should be much less intelligent as adults than those who had no fluoride at any time.
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This - and if it has a detrimental effect on IQ, why didn't they observe that these people had great teeth, as well as being stupid?
It is easier to see signals from population level dental health than measuring slight changes in intellect of a population.
Seems like a great study. A group of people whose children are raised without anf fluoride in their diets (gonna have to make certain there is none in their water source, and a group whose children had fluoridated water. In the end, the children who partook of fluoride should be much less intelligent as adults than those who had no fluoride at any time.
I don't understand the basis of commentary such as "much less intelligent" my understanding is the observed variance is on the order of a few points basically in line with what you can expect from taking another IQ test. Who is talking about significant changes in IQ?
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This - and if it has a detrimental effect on IQ, why didn't they observe that these people had great teeth, as well as being stupid?
It is easier to see signals from population level dental health than measuring slight changes in intellect of a population.
I don't disagree with you at all. But they claim that it makes people less intelligent.
Seems like a great study. A group of people whose children are raised without anf fluoride in their diets (gonna have to make certain there is none in their water source, and a group whose children had fluoridated water. In the end, the children who partook of fluoride should be much less intelligent as adults than those who had no fluoride at any time.
I don't understand the basis of commentary such as "much less intelligent" my understanding is the observed variance is on the order of a few points basically in line with what you can expect from taking another IQ test. Who is talking about significant changes in IQ?
The people who will take this and run with it. They are anti-vaxxers,
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Success and good teeth are correlated. You won't find anyone in serious positions of authority, entertainment, or management with f'ed up teeth.
Quite true. I even had some work done on my grill when I got my new position a few years back. Fixed some old Ice Hockey Chipped Chiclets. They weren't all that unsightly, but might as well have a big ol smile.
So there's a few locations with high floride (Score:2)
So you get cranks going on about Fluoride when yes, there is an issue for some communities with high levels of fluoride where we can't just add it to their water.
And that breaks a lot of American brains. Because it's gotta be all or nothing. Nuance be damned!
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> And that breaks a lot of American brains. Because it's gotta be all or nothing. Nuance be damned!
Probably from all the fluoride making lowering their IQ...
Re:Do Thyroid and Pineal gland function next ... (Score:4, Interesting)
The safety factors for impact on thyroid and pineal gland function are similarly pathetic or entirely absent depending on your point of view. With the anti-anti-science squad desperately trying to claim threshold effect as if that makes it all good.
Caries is a huge problem which in and of itself causes massive health problems downstream, at the population level probably well in excess of the little health damage of fluoridation ... but can we have an honest discussion about it, instead of first lying for the greater good and then turning it into a witch hunt for the greater good? "You can't handle the truth" is not a good position for scientists to take IMO.
The effects of fluoride were discovered via people who lived in an area where the drinking water contained fluoride, and they had few cavities. If a demonstrable effect that fluoride made humans stupid, it seems that those same people would be remarkably and quantitatively of lower intelligence.
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OK. But without fluoridating the water there are other approaches that work. Before I lived in an area with fluoridated water the dentists used to paint teeth with a fluoride paste. I forget how often that needed to be repeated.
Anyway, if there ARE problems with fluoride in the water, one can avoid systemic exposure and still get the benefits.
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OK. But without fluoridating the water there are other approaches that work. Before I lived in an area with fluoridated water the dentists used to paint teeth with a fluoride paste. I forget how often that needed to be repeated.
Anyway, if there ARE problems with fluoride in the water, one can avoid systemic exposure and still get the benefits.
That is true. I use a fluoride paste at home - It is a casein based product with sodium fluoride. It also rebuilds enamel which helps to reduce sensitivity. Got it from my dentist. Well worth it.
Another possibility of a test is to measure the IQ of Americans who partake of fluoridated water with countries that have no fluoridation either through natural water, or medically administered. Those countries citizens should have a markedly higher average IQ.
This should be provable the same way as lead "consu
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You can't use IQ tests to make such comparisons, especially between countries. Even if IQ tests were a reliable measure of raw intelligence, which they clearly are not, there are too many other variables to attribute any difference to just one thing like fluoride.
The only way to prove fluoride has any effect on intelligence is to find the mechanism by which it affects development of the brain.
I don't know the right term for it. Possibly my being purposely obtuse to make a point, but I'm not disagreeing with anything you say.
I'm pretty certain that any measurable effect will be extremely tiny. As another poster noted, IQ tests can be quite ambiguous, and it is possible for the same person to get a different "IQ" on tests when retaking them.
One thing is for certain, we've been fluoridating water for many decades now, and the people drinking the naturally fluoridated water for even longer do
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The funny thing about IQ tests is that if people with an IQ of 150 really were super smart, they would realize that IQ tests are mostly bunk.
IQ tests do not measure drive or other ability. They can give some insight into how quickly a person "picks things up". They definitely do not predict any sort of success. They do not predict so called common sense.
"Smarts" are a combination of intelligence, and ability to think rationally, talent and drive.
I've known and worked with very talented people who lacked drive, and were essentially worthless. I've als worked with genius level people who needed a lot of assistance to maneuver through life. My
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IQ is a measure of how good you are at IQ tests.
Would you hire a person tested wit and IQ of 70, as well as someone with one of 125, when ability to learn is critical?
They have a use as a general tool. Not just a test for bragging rights.
These discussions have a tendency to degenerate into psycho-silliness like the Bell Curve, and Eugenics. So I'll just drop this off, and if you believe that measurements of intelligence are meaningless, and there is no way to determine a person's ability to learn - you do you.
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They aren't bunk, but what they measure isn't what's normally called intelligence. It definitely has a relation to doing well in academic settings, though. (But not a simple relation, as when kids are bored, they don't do well...for them.)
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IQ test scores can be improved through practice, so they clearly just measure particular skills that a person can learn. It's not some measure of raw intelligence.
It's obvious when you think about it. If I gave you an IQ test written in Japanese, you would probably score close to zero. You need to have language skills, skills you must learn. The same applies to the questions themselves, just like you get better at maths and crossword puzzles with practice.
That's why IQ tests are largely useless for the thin
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It doesn't take being "super smart" to know these tests don't really measure very much of what we consider intelligence. All IQ tests are biased, and the more you work to reduce the bias, the more limited in scope the test becomes which is itself a bias. Intelligence is a vague concept like consciousness, and the harder you try to measure it the less useful the results.
In my youth, the gold standard was a "culture fair" IQ test that tried to avoid cultural influences by not having problems that require unde
Re: Do Thyroid and Pineal gland function next ... (Score:2)
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Or, the issue may be that there exists an amount which is helpful to teeth and a higher amount that harms the developing brain. The study referred to showed a probable effect at double the amount that has been shown to be helpful to teeth. Perhaps the thing to do is to regulate a minimum and a maximum concentration that helps the teeth and doesn't harm the brain.
This would be very far from the first known case where a little is good, a lot is bad.
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The study referred to showed a probable effect at double the amount that has been shown to be helpful to teeth.
Actually, the study showed a probable effect at twice the current regulatory limit, which is itself twice the recommended amount considered helpful to teeth. So, roughly four times the amount shown to be helpful to teeth.
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Which we already know would cause very noticeable dental issues, so you know you're not getting over-fluoridated by your drinking water.
Too much fluoride causes issues with dental mineralization and you get very bad teeth. We'd know.
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Too much fluoride also causes issues with dental an skeletal mineralization, assuming there is some common threshold for when it negatively affects every part of the body is a stretch.
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Which we already know would cause very noticeable dental issues, so you know you're not getting over-fluoridated by your drinking water.
Too much fluoride causes issues with dental mineralization and you get very bad teeth. We'd know.
Yes - Fluorosis is the condition.
Too much fluorine is not good. Neither is too much salt. So is too much calcium - hypercalcemia. If you think that fluorine is bad, sodium is a hella bad thing, and Calcium is a very reactive alkali metal. Sodium is a nasty one as well.And Chlorine is used as a poison gas.
Salt is a necessary chemical for life, as well as calcium. Both are harmless unless we over-consume them. And to be really skawee, Sodium monofluorophosphate contains both sodium, fluorine, and has fr
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Apart from those things being vital to life they also all have homeostasis mechanisms. Not of infinite efficacy, but better than nothing, which is what the body has to regulate fluorine uptake and distribution.
Fluorine just butts in, generally mucking things up ... and in a very narrow range for a very specific part of the body helping a bit within the context of modern living (humanity did not significantly evolve with caries).
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Apart from those things being vital to life they also all have homeostasis mechanisms. Not of infinite efficacy, but better than nothing, which is what the body has to regulate fluorine uptake and distribution.
Fluorine just butts in, generally mucking things up ... and in a very narrow range for a very specific part of the body helping a bit within the context of modern living (humanity did not significantly evolve with caries).
To that last point of yours, after the dietary changes from hunter gatherer to agrarian with its overload of carbohydrates and now all the sugar we eat makes for a lot of cavities.
High carb low animal protein diets can even mes with some people's metabolism. Like mine. I tried a presumably healthy vegetarian diet some 30 years ago. What a mess. After 6 months of digestive irregularity - too little too often - and not much energy, and a mere 5 pounds weight loss, I went back to a normal diet, and after ano
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The other direction needs care too. Humans aren't evolved to have heme and retinol be the dominant source of iron and vitamin A in diet.
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The other direction needs care too. Humans aren't evolved to have heme and retinol be the dominant source of iron and vitamin A in diet.
In a side note, ever wonder why humans don't synthesize Vitamamin C?
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Too much fluoride causes issues with dental mineralization and you get very bad teeth.
To be clear, you get ugly teeth with permanent brown spots. They're not "bad" teeth per se. Structurally they're quite strong.
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4x is a very small safety factor for an OTC medication which has varying exposure depending on diet and other sources.
Yes, Tylenol is near that ... but when you have to use Tylenol in defence of safety factor, it's a pretty weak defence.
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very small safety factor for an OTC medication
Fluoridated drinking water is not an OTC medication. You can't get a kit to fluoridate your own drinking water. It's done by professionals operating large water systems.
Unless you eat it, which you're explicitly told not to do, your fluoride exposure from toothpaste is much, much lower.
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The study referred to showed a probable effect at double the amount that has been shown to be helpful to teeth.
Actually, the study showed a probable effect at twice the current regulatory limit, which is itself twice the recommended amount considered helpful to teeth. So, roughly four times the amount shown to be helpful to teeth.
Wait until they see what would happen if the amount of Oxygen in the atmosphere was four times the present amount of~ 21 percent!
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Wait until they see what would happen if the amount of Oxygen in the atmosphere was four times the present amount of~ 21 percent!
We already know what happens. Flash fire like Apollo 1.
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Wait until they see what would happen if the amount of Oxygen in the atmosphere was four times the present amount of~ 21 percent!
We already know what happens. Flash fire like Apollo 1.
Well - We do. Some won't even make the connection.
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The safety factors for impact on thyroid and pineal gland function are similarly pathetic or entirely absent depending on your point of view. With the anti-anti-science squad desperately trying to claim threshold effect as if that makes it all good.
Caries is a huge problem which in and of itself causes massive health problems downstream, at the population level probably well in excess of the little health damage of fluoridation ... but can we have an honest discussion about it, instead of first lying for the greater good and then turning it into a witch hunt for the greater good? "You can't handle the truth" is not a good position for scientists to take IMO.
The effects of fluoride were discovered via people who lived in an area where the drinking water contained fluoride, and they had few cavities. If a demonstrable effect that fluoride made humans stupid, it seems that those same people would be remarkably and quantitatively of lower intelligence.
It's easier to count cavities than a slight difference in IQ, especially once you take into account how many additional factors affect IQ.
Right now the questions are whether the effect on children's IQ is real (probably, but not certain), and whether it's a threshold effect (only happens at more than X mg/L) or is simply smaller at low doses.
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It's easier to count cavities than a slight difference in IQ, especially once you take into account how many additional factors affect IQ.
Right now the questions are whether the effect on children's IQ is real (probably, but not certain), and whether it's a threshold effect (only happens at more than X mg/L) or is simply smaller at low doses.
The IQ issue is very difficult to assess. It would take some way to do an IQ test at birth, than another at some point - say at 18 years old.
Now reading the monograph, there is one interesting note on it:
"This Monograph and Addendum do not address whether the sole exposure to fluoride added to drinking water in some countries (i.e., fluoridation, at 0.7 mg/L in the United States and Canada) is associated with a measurable effect on IQ."
Well, that is interesting, is there some sort of ethics issue? T
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it seems that those same people would be remarkably and quantitatively of lower intelligence.
Not necessarily. They could have had negative impacts on their intelligence that had not been measured, or that were not noticed, noticeable, or measurable at the time statistically.
Could also be the makeup and amount of these chemicals in the water were not enough to cause problems with those they had been studying, but the fluoride in the water after being manually added elsewhere result in a significantly d
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it seems that those same people would be remarkably and quantitatively of lower intelligence.
Not necessarily. They could have had negative impacts on their intelligence that had not been measured, or that were not noticed, noticeable, or measurable at the time statistically.
Could also be the makeup and amount of these chemicals in the water were not enough to cause problems with those they had been studying, but the fluoride in the water after being manually added elsewhere result in a significantly different composition and amount
Maybe. One thing interesting is that naturally occurring fluoride is in the water in many places. At a higher level than what the study concludes is reducing people's IQ. Perhaps we need to have everyone drink distilled water?
My thoughts on all this is that the IQ amounts measured by urine fluoride serum is low, and in some cases inconclusive, the IQ of the children was measured orally, and found within statistical variance. Ima going to say this will just be fuel for the anti-vaxxer anti science crowd an
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I am surprised that Fluoride is added in the drinking water in the US. It is a very uncharacteristic socialistic thing to do for a country like the USA.
Keep the sugars l
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Studies in the U.S. in the 1950s and 1960s showed that water fluoridation reduced childhood cavities by fifty to sixty percent, while studies in 1989 and 1990 showed lower reductions (40% and 18% respectively), likely due to increasing use of fluoride from other sources, notably toothpaste, and also the 'halo effect' of food and drink that is made in fluoridated areas and consumed in unfluoridated ones.
Re: Do Thyroid and Pineal gland function next ... (Score:2)
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"Eat more vegetables" isn't practical public health advice. Compliance is too low. Of course society should continue encouraging it, but this nudge is not a solution in the way fluoride is a solution.
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Uhm... they are people, not cattle. Educate them. It takes time and patience, but it works. Too bad you cannot add that to the water.
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Fluoridation is however still clearly necessary in the U.S. because unlike most European countries, the U.S. does not have school-based dental care, many children do not visit a dentist regularly, and for many U.S. children water fluoridation is the primary source of exposure to fluoride.
So the issue is again the US healthcare system.
Re: Do Thyroid and Pineal gland function next ... (Score:2)
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WTF? Many people drink tap water, at least in countries where it is safe to drink.
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To the moderator who previously modded me down for saying Slashdotters are not normal and don't understand how normal people live. I present to you exhibit A:
Tap water is for washing, not drinking.
Buy distilled water, and add what minerals/nutrients you need.