Few substances have been studied better than fluoride in the last 70 years, and the conclusion is always the same: fluoridation is safe and prevents tooth decay.
ALASTAIR PIKE
André Picard is a health reporter and columnist for The Globe and Mail. His most recent book is Matters of Life and Death: Public Health Issues in Canada.
There is no shortage of health conspiracy theories, but some of the most resourceful and long-lasting are about fluoridation.
You don’t have to go too far down the internet rabbit hole to find out that fluoride – which is added to drinking water to reduce tooth decay – has been linked to almost every medical and social disease imaginable, from cancer to weak bones rising crime rates leading to falling IQs.
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A paranoid Cold War-era analysis goes something like this: Fluoride – an invisible, tasteless, brain-altering chemical – was added to water supplies by agents of the Soviet Union to stupid citizens and make the United States ripe for adoption.
“It’s incredibly obvious, isn’t it?” General Jack D. Ripper explained in the gruesome satirical film Dr. Strangelove. “A foreign substance is introduced into our precious body fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Without a choice, of course. This is how your hardcore commie works. “
Ridiculous. Aside from the notion that drinking water shaving with tiny amounts of fluoride is affecting our IQ is back – no less served up by a prestigious medical journal.
Earlier this week, JAMA Pediatrics published a Canadian study suggesting that children exposed to fluoride in utero may have slightly lower intelligence scores than those who were not exposed to fluoride.
Research like this is valid, but the researchers went too far in saying pregnant women should limit their consumption of fluorinated water. That’s the kind of jump that gives environmental epidemiology a bad rap.
The survey enrolled 512 pregnant women in six cities and measured their fluoride intake in two ways: 1) asked them to estimate their tap water consumption, using the fluoride levels from the local supply; 2) The urine of 141 women living in cities with fluorinated water and 228 with non-fluorinated water were tested.
Three to four years later, the mothers’ children were given IQ tests.
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After doing some numerical analysis, the researchers found that a 1 milligram per liter increase in urine fluoride levels was associated with a 4.5 point decrease in IQ in boys, but no difference in girls. Based on self-reported consumption, an increased daily intake of 1 mg / liter was associated with an IQ reduction of 3.66 points in boys and girls.
In practical terms, this means that the children of mothers who consumed fluoridated water had a slightly lower IQ – about two to three points based on a median fluoride intake of 0.7 mg / liter.
That is completely meaningless. At best, IQ is an imperfect measure of intelligence. The test results can vary from day to day. Hell, you probably lose two IQ points watching a Seth Rogen movie.
In addition, there are the limitations of the study, the most important of which is the age-old warning: Correlation is not causality.
That said, just because the small sample of children of fluoridated water drinkers in the study had slightly lower IQ scores doesn’t mean the fluoride is to blame. A myriad of things add to your memory, analytical thinking, math skills, and spatial recognition (the things measured in an IQ test) including genetics, education, diet, pollution, and more.
An employee of the Watford Water Board in the UK added fluoride to the city’s water supply in 1965.
Chris Ware / Keystone Features / Getty Images
Researchers are doing us a disservice – and potentially great harm – by jumping to conclusions that fuel anti-fluoridation conspiracies.
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We already see groups like the Fluoride Action Network salivating the propaganda value of these results and citing them as evidence. Claims that thousands of studies show that fluoridation is safe are not true. Indeed, public health has neglected the health of people living in fluoridated communities. “
Few substances have been studied better than fluoride in the last 70 years, and the conclusion is always the same: fluoridation is safe and prevents tooth decay.
The origin of fluoridation is a fascinating story of the scientific study of shoe leather. In 1901, the newly minted dentist Frederick McKay opened a practice in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He noticed that many of the town’s children had grotesque brown stains on their teeth, but also very few tooth decay. He was determined to find out why. It took him three decades to solve the puzzle.
It found that children who drank from water supplies high in naturally occurring fluoride developed “Colorado Brown Stain”. The fluoride also strengthens the tooth enamel, which leads to less tooth decay.
The head of the Department of Dental Hygiene at the US National Institute of Health, HT Dean, was intrigued and decided to test fluoride levels in the US. (Today the standard is 0.7 ppm.)
So why not put the chemical in water supplies where it doesn’t naturally occur, Dean wondered.
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Also in 1945, a similar experiment was conducted in Brantford, Ontario that saw a 35 percent decrease in tooth decay and a 63 percent decrease in tooth decay severity over the next 11 years.
It was the first time in history that scientists found a way to prevent tooth decay, a milestone for public health.
But it was wartime, and fluorine had another, more sinister use as a key component in making atomic bombs.
In the post-war years, as skepticism about science grew, suspicion of government flourished, and the Red Terror was born, fluoridation became a hot spot.
Anti-fluoridation activists have done an excellent job adapting their scare tactics to the times.
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In the 1960s, fluoride was positioned as a civil rights issue – an unjustified “mass medication”. In the 1970s, shielding people from fluoride was a consumer protection issue. The 1980s was about preventing water pollution from a dangerous chemical. In the 1990s, when the budget was cut, fluoridation was targeted as an unnecessary expense for taxpayers. And in the 2000s as an “unnatural” and “neurotoxic” chemical. Today anti-fluoridation groups ride the wave of denial of expertise and promote pseudoscience with scientific language.
However, the basic arguments for and against fluoridation have not changed over time.
Public health officials argue that it is a cheap, safe, and effective way to reduce tooth decay. Fluoridation of municipal water supplies costs about $ 1 per person; Every dollar invested saves an estimated $ 38 on dental care.
Opponents of fluoridation see Big Brother poisoning them with chemicals and make sweeping safety claims based largely on rat studies and wild generalizations about small epidemiological studies, such as the new paper on IQ.
About 66 percent of US drinking water and 38 percent of Canadian drinking water are fluoridated. (Water is also treated with chlorine or ozone to kill bacteria.)
Government of Canada poster promoting fluoridation, “Fluoridation, Get with it!”, C. 1950-1978.
Library and Archives Canada / Health and Welfare Canada.
In Europe only about 3 percent of drinking water is fluorinated; in many European countries children take fluoride supplements; in countries with free dental care, they are regularly flushed with fluoride. In Asia and Africa, salt and milk contain fluoride.
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There’s no question that with the advent of fluoridated toothpaste and the popularity of bottled water (which, by the way, bleeds hormone-like chemicals), the relative effectiveness of fluoridated water has declined.
Whenever we are discussing anything, it should be about making sure everyone is getting enough fluoride to protect their teeth.
But when it comes to health threats – real and imagined – the argument that “the government is poisoning us with fluoride” does not hold water.
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