Why avoid fluoride in water?

I have frequently written about fluoride and how it harms. The UK’s Prime Minister has proposed a bill to make fluoridation mandatory in the UK. In response to that bill, the Fluoride Action Network wrote a letter pointing out the bill’s mistakes and deceits. I chose a few excerpts (below). Read the full letter at the Fluoride Action Network. If you’re not filtering your water these days…you are not taking care of yourself at one of the most basic levels. Believe me, the richest individuals in our societies are not drinking water from the tap. There is a reason for that…

“Not mentioned in the UK government paper are other recent studies published on other organs, tissues and body systems, for example a major prospective cohort study from Sweden demonstrates a higher risk of hip fractures in post-menopausal women associated with long term exposure to natural fluoride at levels in water in the same range as the USA fluoridates its water [Helte et al., 2021]. This is a very serious finding because it is well known that hip fractures in the elderly are debilitating, costly to treat, lead to a loss of independence, institutional care and often shorten the life of those impacted. This finding also underlines the fact that fluoride can impact our health from womb to tomb, affecting the brains of the fetus and the bones of the elderly after lifetime exposure.

A very significant improvement in the quality of these studies occurred in 2017, when the first of four NIEHS-NIH (National Institutes of Health) funded prospective-cohort studies were published (Bashash 2017 and 2018; Green 2019; and an infant study by Till 2020). 

For the first time, the studies included measurements made in pregnant women and their offspring.  This was important because fluoride is known to cross the placenta.  Measurements of both exposure and outcome were made at the individual level (previously these were made at the community level, in so-called “ecological” studies).

The study by Till, 2020 showed that the infant brain is also very susceptible to damage from fluoride. This study found a large reduction in children’s IQ when as infants they were bottle-fed in communities which were fluoridated compared to children who when as infants were bottle-fed in non-fluoridated communities. 

Most importantly, the fluoride exposures in all these studies were at levels commonly experienced by pregnant women and children in fluoridated communities in Canada and USA, which adds fluoride at 0.7 ppm. The weight of evidence now strongly suggests that fluoride is capable of damaging both the fetal and the infant brain at very low levels.

Based upon Grandjean et al., Benchmark Dose Analysis (BMD) published in June 2021, offspring born to women exposed to fluoride doses commonly experienced in communities at 0.7 ppm, would experience a loss of 4 to 5 IQ points.  To put that into perspective, at the population level a shift downward of 5 IQ points halves the number of very bright children (IQ >130) and increases by 57% the number of children needing special care (IQ <70).  Both changes have enormous social and economic ramifications for a large population in a country like the UK.”