On this interview, Paul Connett, Ph.D., cofounder of and scientific adviser for the Fluoride Motion Community (FAN), gives an annual standing replace for 2022. As long-time readers of this text will know, we have supported and promoted FAN for over a decade.
Fluoride is likely one of the many pointless obstacles to optimum well being, and we have been combating all this time to coach individuals concerning the dangers of fluoridated water, and to finish water fluoridation as soon as and for all. Throughout Fluoride Consciousness Week, I’ll match your donations greenback for greenback, so please contemplate making a tax-deductible donation immediately.
Fluoride Lowers IQ
In response to Connett, the science was conclusively resolved in 2017, when the primary of the Nationwide Institute of Environmental Well being Science (NIEHS)-funded research got here out. This research, the so-called Bashash research,1 confirmed what many earlier investigations had proven, specifically that consuming fluoridated water lowers IQ in youngsters.
“It was a really putting research,” Connett says. “It was a really, superb research. It needed to be, to get NIEHS funding. It was based mostly on particular person measurements of publicity in pregnant girls, and particular person measurements of final result.
They measured the fluoride ranges of their urine, thrice, as soon as in every trimester. Urine degree is an excellent measure as a result of it provides you a measure of whole publicity, whether or not it comes from toothpaste, water or meals.
They discovered a robust affiliation between the pregnant lady’s publicity to fluoride and lowered IQ in youngsters, they usually’d taken care of dozens of confounding variables. It was 4 to 5 IQ factors for a 1-milligram per liter improve of fluoride.
In reality, the vary for that 4 to 5 IQ level reducing was the identical vary that you simply get for pregnant girls in the USA when it comes to fluoride ranges. So, that was probably the most putting factor. The common degree of their urine was 0.87 components per milligram (i.e., 0.87 milligrams per liter).”
Youngsters’s IQ Is Being Decimated
Whereas on the subject of IQ, there’s now proof suggesting that pandemic measures equivalent to masks carrying and isolation have brought on a mean 22-point drop in IQ amongst infants born through the pandemic.2 Usually, solely 16% of kids are born with an IQ decrease than 85. Most are between 85 and 115. In the course of the pandemic years, virtually all of the infants they examined scored under 85, scoring a mean of simply 78!
A four- to five-point loss for each 1-mg per liter improve in fluoride in moms’ urine was stunning, so that actually says one thing concerning the hurt these countermeasures have achieved. Compound that with fluoridated water, and a few youngsters might be a 27-point loss in IQ, which is just staggering. That is principally the distinction of going from the extent of genius to common, or from common to imbecile.
The pandemic restrictions have been clearly an aberration, though it is not not possible that they’re going to attempt to implement them once more sooner or later. But when we low cost the impression they’ve had, fluoride tops the listing of environmental elements that rob youngsters of intelligence, and has been doing so for the final 75 years. Connett notes:
“Chris Neurath, our science director, estimates that extra IQ factors are being misplaced in America from fluoride than attributable to some other issue, together with untimely start and publicity to guide. Fluoride, immediately, is inflicting extra lack of IQ factors than lead.”
When the Bashash research was revealed, Connett thought the struggle was over. However he was improper. Water fluoridation continued unabated in lots of locations. Just a few years later, a Canadian research got here out (Until, 2020), displaying the IQ distinction between youngsters who have been bottle-fed in a fluoridated neighborhood, in comparison with those that have been bottle-fed in a non-fluoridated neighborhood was 9 factors.
Bureaucratic Inertia and Revenue Motives Put Youngsters at Threat
So, the science3 displaying water fluoridation is hurting our youngsters is there. As famous by Connett, what we have been doing for the final a number of a long time is to attempt to push again the political forces that refuse to confess the error and cease their endorsement of water fluoridation.
“One of many shocks I’ve had, over the previous couple of years, since 2017, is to find that there actually are individuals on the market who imagine a small profit to enamel, if it exists, really warrants this danger to the mind,” Connett says. “[They believe] that lowering tooth decay is extra necessary than defending youngsters’s brains.
And sadly, it consists of the U.S. surgeon basic. It consists of probably the most highly effective individuals in public well being in England, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the USA and Eire.
When individuals ask me, ‘Why do they fluoridate the water? Why do they take these dangers as a way to scale back tooth decay?’ I’ve needed to say, ‘Nicely, you might be asking me to give you a rational rationalization for irrational conduct.’ It is simply not rational … there is not any scientific rationalization for this apply.
The one factor I can give you is … cash … All the most important universities in the USA are benefiting from authorities cash subsidizing dental analysis. And in the event you say that fluoridation is the most effective factor since sliced bread, this cash retains rolling in.
Clearly, there’s additionally some huge cash going into the phosphate fertilizer {industry}, the place the fluoridated chemical compounds come from. As a substitute of treating [fluoride] as hazardous waste, it is put in our consuming water. In order that’s one other ‘rational’ rationalization, in the event you like, as to why it is occurring. However the almost definitely [reason], from my standpoint, is official inertia.”
The primary municipality to institute water fluoridation was Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1945,4 but it surely wasn’t till 1950 that the U.S. Public Well being Service and the American Dental Affiliation endorsed it.5 This occurred earlier than any of the trials — which have been imagined to be ongoing for a minimum of 10 years — had been accomplished. For a lot of a long time since then little effort has been made to analysis fluoride’s dangerous results.
This modified in 2017 with the NIEHS Nationwide Institute of Environmental Well being Sciences-funded IQ research. Nonetheless, even now, the individuals in command of this coverage haven’t been keen to confess they have been improper in selling this apply for worry of dropping credibility. It could be that in the event that they have been to confess that fluoridation was a mistake, the general public would not belief them on different public well being practices.
Sadly, over time, it has solely change into harder to confess the error. Who desires to confess authorities has been harming youngsters’s well being for greater than 75 years with out ever altering course? Private careers could now not be at stake, however the credibility of the company is. Lack of public belief in our well being businesses might additionally have an effect on individuals’s belief in different public well being measures, together with childhood vaccinations, which they wish to keep away from in any respect prices.
Warnings Are Not Being Put Out
Now that we all know there is not any safety for fetuses — that any fluoride a pregnant lady consumes goes into her growing little one, together with its mind — pregnant girls have to be advised to cease consuming fluoridated water and utilizing fluoridated toothpaste, a minimum of whereas they’re pregnant and probably for a while earlier than. However these warnings aren’t going out. Connett says:
“We begged the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, saying, ‘We all know it will take you time to cease your help of this coverage, however a minimum of warn pregnant girls to keep away from fluoridated water and inform dad and mom who bottle feed their infants to not use fluoridated water.’
However they will not do it. We wrote a number of letters to the pinnacle of the CDC, after which we requested them to take heed to specialists. We received specialists of a few of these IQ research.
Philippe Grandjean, Bruce Lanphear and Christine Until gave a 30-minute presentation to Dr. Karen Hacker on the CDC. This was all personal, nobody was watching besides us, they usually had no questions by any means … however they proceed to advertise fluoridation as the most effective factor since sliced bread.
In reality, they’re planning proper now to extend the variety of individuals doubtlessly getting fluoridated water by 19 million, as a result of they’re developed a pill system, just like the tablets you place into urinals, huge tablets of sodium fluoride, and these are injected [into the water supply] via a plastic tube. It is a very low cost supply system, which is appropriate for small communities.
So, 19 million individuals who have been residing in rural areas, who’ve been protected as a result of it was too costly to place in all the same old tools, now have the fantastic advantages of those fluoride tablets. And the promotion of this new supply system is occurring on the similar time that the science is popping out [showing it’s] reducing the IQ of kids and rising signs of ADHD.”
EPA Has a Obligation to Finish Water Fluoridation
In 2016, FAN filed a petition below the Poisonous Substances and Management Act (TSCA) with the Environmental Safety Company (EPA), based on Chinese language research displaying fluoride harms the mind, urging them to finish water fluoridation. Underneath the TSCA, the EPA is required to ban makes use of of chemical compounds proven to pose an unreasonable danger to the well being of the American individuals, together with susceptible subsets.
“Dr. Philippe Grandjean did a danger evaluation utilizing the Canadian research and the Mexico Metropolis research — the Bashash6 and Inexperienced7 research — and estimates the extent of fluoride in moms’ urine related to a one-point IQ loss in offspring is 0.2 ppm. The common in the USA is about 0.8 to 0.9 components per million in a fluoridated neighborhood.
0.7 ppm is the advisable degree to place within the water. I am speaking concerning the degree in a mom’s urine, which is roughly the identical degree. In Canada, they measured it as 0.91 ppm. So, if 0.2 ppm lowers IQ by one level, 0.8 ppm would decrease the IQ by 4 IQ factors; 0.9 ppm would decrease it by 4.5 IQ factors. The connection is linear.”
Replace on FAN’s Lawsuit Towards the EPA
When the EPA rejected FAN’s petition, FAN filed a lawsuit towards them. The trial started in June 2020. Main specialists and scientists testified on FAN’s behalf. The EPA, in the meantime, used specialists from Exponent, a consulting firm that does the soiled work for Dow, DuPont and different chemical corporations. They’ve defended dioxins, PCBs and RoundUp, simply to call just a few.
“They tried to point out, in courtroom, that none of these issues are dangerous. It is all in our creativeness. And so they tried to do the identical with fluoride, however the choose on the finish was clearly impressed with the proof … The opposite putting factor within the trial is that these industry-friendly consultants, Exponent Inc., admitted that the research we have been citing … have been the most effective research performed up to now.
And so, he mentioned, ‘I wish to see three issues. I wish to see this BMD evaluation revealed’ — that was by Philippe Grandjean, and it is since been revealed; 0.2 ppm in moms’ urine [results in the] lack of one IQ level — ‘I wish to see the Nationwide Toxicology Program’s (NTP) last report, and I wish to see if there are some other research which have taken place, which contradict what we have heard.’
Nicely, he is received the BMD evaluation from Grandjean, however we’re nonetheless ready for the Nationwide Toxicology Program to finalize [its report]. And that is the ultimate act of politics versus science in the entire fluoridation fiasco. For 70 years, they actually have not had respectable science demonstrating advantages and definitely not respectable science displaying it was protected.
They’ve prevented the research displaying hurt. Lastly, we have these research. That is the ultimate act, however clearly one thing is delaying that NTP report, and we expect it is the darkish forces behind fluoridation, the dental foyer and the opposite individuals with maybe financial curiosity who can’t bear to see this apply go.
For them, defending this coverage is extra necessary than defending the well being of our individuals, and that is a scary factor. When coverage is king, science is a slave, and that is what we’re seeing.”
Are We Witnessing the Battle of Two Businesses?
The unhappy reality is, many if not most of our public well being businesses and regulatory our bodies are utterly captured by the {industry}, which is why public well being now comes final.
Connett’s spouse is at present researching the position of the Nationwide Institute of Dental and Cranial Facial Analysis (NIDCR) within the fluoridation program. This company got here into existence in 1948, on the again of the water fluoridation program. As such, it grew to become the conduit for dental analysis on the taxpayer’s dime, and loads of that cash was siphoned into fluoridation.
“Fluoridation was the justification for the gravy practice,” Connett explains. “My spouse has been going into that gravy practice and I’ve a hunch that what we’re proper now’s the battle between two businesses: the NIEHS, which is anxious about fluoride’s neurotoxicity, and the NIDCR, which doesn’t wish to see fluoridation go down the tubes.”
The excellent news is that, since we began over 20 years in the past, highly-respected high specialists in neurotoxicity at the moment are concerned within the analysis on fluoride, and extra are becoming a member of in to take a look at the toxicity of fluoride on varied tissues. New research are popping out on a regular basis. Greater than 20 have been revealed on fluoride and IQ since 2017.
And, even when the EPA finally ends up dragging its heels for years relating to implementation on the federal degree, a optimistic ruling would make it far simpler to finish water fluoridation on the state degree.
How you can Keep away from Fluoride Publicity
Within the meantime, how are you going to keep away from fluoride publicity? Connett responds:
“I am going to inform you what we do. We get our water from a neighborhood spring. And also you do have corporations that ship spring water to your family. Should you can afford it, that’s one of the best ways. When you’ve got it achieved by an organization that does that, they’ll inform you the way it’s examined and you’ll be safe figuring out that you simply’re not consuming fluoride.
I feel that is the only finest funding. Get non-fluoridated spring water, and use that for cooking, tea, espresso, et cetera, and consuming. The opposite factor you are able to do is, clearly, keep away from fluoridated toothpaste.
Keep away from mechanically deboned meat — patties, the place they mince up the meat utilizing a machine — as a result of fluoride accumulates in animal bone, in order that’s the place you are going to get fluoride from. If you are going to eat meat, eat complete steaks, complete chickens or no matter, not minced up. Keep away from floor meat.
The opposite factor is fish. Tinned fish, pilchards, sardines, salmon, the bones in these tinned fish are usually very mushy [and contain loads of fluoride]. Within the sea, [natural fluoride] is 1.4 ppm, components per million, so the fish [bones contain it].
For 20-odd years I have been making an attempt to inform individuals the fluoride ion is the poisonous factor … There’s nothing protected about pure fluoride. The one factor about pure fluoride is if you get it, you normally get loads of different minerals as effectively, together with magnesium and calcium, they usually in flip might be protecting towards fluoride.
So, in the event you get 1 ppm fluoride however you get 100 ppm of calcium or magnesium, that may assist defend you towards that fluoride ion being taken up.”
If you wish to get your fluoride degree examined, simply lookup labs that measure fluoride in water. They are going to have the ability to give you that check, and it is sometimes fairly cheap. When you’ve got fluoridated water, remember that it’s extremely troublesome to filter out. Low cost carbon filters will not do it. You want both reverse osmosis or distillation tools to get it out, which is why NOT including fluoride within the first place actually is the most effective resolution.
What’s Subsequent With the EPA Lawsuit?
For now, we’re ready for the NTP report to return out. As soon as revealed, FAN will return to the courtroom. At that time, the choose will wish to hear skilled analyses of the report from either side.
“He’ll learn it, however he’ll need specialists from either side to persuade him that the NTP is saying what we expect it says — that the most effective research present that fluoride lowers IQ …
The NTP has had two draft opinions, and in these draft opinions, they discovered — in response to Chris Neurath who analyzed them — 27 research which they categorised as top quality, that means low danger of bias … and of these 27 top quality research, 25 discovered a reducing of IQ and two didn’t. So, 25 out of 27.
Of these 25, 11 have been achieved at lower than 0.7 ppm or equal to 0.7 ppm. That is the extent at which we fluoridate … and the vast majority of the high-quality research … discovered a reducing of IQ at lower than 1.5 ppm. And 1.5 ppm is what the EPA considers to be related, so far as any research pertaining to water fluoridation.
Bear in mind, you have to take care of issues like margin of security, and if IQ is lowered at 1.5 ppm, there isn’t any margin of security to guard youngsters consuming 0.7 ppm, as a result of some might drink twice as a lot water as different youngsters. They might be getting the equal of 1.5 ppm when it comes to dose. Then, you have received the vary of vulnerability of these youngsters.
So, lower than 1.5 ppm fluoridation must finish if it lowered IQ. That is in the event you lived in a world which was rational and through which science had an opportunity of really functioning within the regulatory our bodies. However most of them are captured by {industry}. The CDC is captured by the drug {industry}, the EPA is captured by the chemical {industry}, the FDA, till just lately, [by] the mercury individuals [and the drug industry].”
