as Cracked puts it - B.S. headline of the week!
Basically:
1/ It's not news, it is a press release by anti-fluorine activists
2/ It's nto a given - it is a possibility
3/ The levels that constitute "high" are those on poluted Indian and Chinese weater supplies that are up to 20 times allowed levels in "normal" drinking water
and as a bonus it is written with Cracked/com's usual reliance on humour
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction." -Pascal
"It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley; but not at all so to believe or not in God" - Diderot
I just happened to come across this issue while listening to the latest podcast on The Skeptics' Guide To The Universe.
Here's Steve Novella's take on this particular report.
Content from external source:
Conclusion
There are many weaknesses to the epidemiological studies reviewed in the recent article – high heterogeneity, poor controlling for other variables, no indication of blinding of IQ assessments, and many others. But even taken at face value they do not indicate any association of between lower IQ and the fluoride levels added to drinking water in the US. In fact, those levels of fluoride were used as the controls in these studies showing higher IQ. (There was a lot of variance of the effect size, but the net effect size on IQ in the meta-analysis was -0.45 IQ points).
This fact has not stopped anti-fluoridation groups from exploiting the review for their own propaganda purposes. Otherwise respectable news outlets are unwittingly collaborating in this anti-scientific propaganda campaign by lazily reprinting these press releases in their news sections – without any editorial filter.
You mean science is sometimes twisted for political purposes?
Imagine that.
Why would anyone have to imagine it?? "Science" is still a human activity & is therefore subject to all the usual vagaries that humans are generally wont to display.
the thing about science that makes it a bit better than other systems of evidence and knowledge is that it actually gives a mechanism with which to argue against its misuses - that mechanism being itself!
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction." -Pascal
"It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley; but not at all so to believe or not in God" - Diderot
please read this article
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/fea...jean-choi.html
For years health experts have been unable to agree on whether fluoride in the drinking water may be toxic to the developing human brain. Extremely high levels of fluoride are known to cause neurotoxicity in adults, and negative impacts on memory and learning have been reported in rodent studies, but little is known about the substance’s impact on children’s neurodevelopment. In a meta-analysis, researchers from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and China Medical University in Shenyang for the first time combined 27 studies and found strong indications that fluoride may adversely affect cognitive development in children. Based on the findings, the authors say that this risk should not be ignored, and that more research on fluoride’s impact on the developing brain is warranted.
and then read this article too
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/ar...ide-rates.html
Lithium has been heralded by some experts as the next potential flouride, after scientists found suicide rates were lower in areas where the drinking water had higher concentrations of the element. Researchers from the Medical University of Vienna compared the suicide rates in different regions of Austria with the natural lithium concentrations in the drinking water.
They just love to moderate our way of thinking .It's very convenient ...for them but not for us.
Last edited by Mick; October 20th, 2012 at 08:30 AM. Reason: added opening paragraphs for context
The Daily Mail article has some useful perspective on the lithium thing:
However, Dr Appel was keen to stress that only traces of lithium would ever be added to drinking water.
'We are not talking about therapeutic amounts,' he said, adding that a person would have to swallow 'several olympic swimming pools' of water a day to get a similar dosage to a prescription pill.
Regarding the Harvard study. Its interesting, however it's not actually studying water fluoridation, it's areas with high fluoride, vs. areas with low fluoride. In fact the areas with higher IQ were frequently at fluoride levels of around the CD dental optimum of 0.7 mg/L.
Given that all the samples were in China, it's quite possible that this may be showing something like the difference between city folk with processed water (low fluoride, better access to education, higher IQ), and country folk (water from springs and wells, less education, lower IQ).
Clearly more study would be needed there.
Why put this in water supplies at all?? I don't understand why there's any debate, get it out of the water and if people feel the need to swallow Sodium Fluoride they can do so in their own time. This is nothing but forced medication and a profit making scam.
Also, calcium fluoride is what you find in nature, teas etc still considered a toxin. Sodium Fluoride(silicofluorides) is a byproduct of industrial business and there is a direct conflict of interest as it saves them a lot of money not having to throw away their Sodium Fluoride by burying it. The fact that there's still research being done to determine the effects on humans shows it shouldn't be unleashed on the population until overwhelming evidence shows Sodium Fluoride is 100% safe, this is the same argument that's used to push GMO food " ah we haven't seen any negative effects in customers yet let's keep pushing it ". Anyone read the book "100,000,000 guinea pigs"? Pretty horrifying stuff.
Last edited by haarp; November 9th, 2012 at 05:07 AM.
What they primarily use in drinking water is fluorosilicic acid, which is a by-product of phosphate mining and listed by the EPA Superfund as hazardous waste. Has anyone seen the results of spills? This stuff etches concrete and requires full Hazmat gear. Anyway! Plenty of evidence exists to elicit questions of fluoride's harm. This study and one other cost Dr. Mullenix her job at Forsyth. She took this study to NIH and was dismissed shortly after the shock wore off. One of those listening to her review of the study actually asked, "Are you saying that we've been dumbing down our children?" Mullenix was the first to use time-lapse imaging to capture behavioral changes of animals in rigorously controlled studies.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7760776 "Neurotoxicity of Sodium Fluoride in Rats"
The complete story can be found in The Fluoride Deception by Christopher Bryson. It's worth noting that Mullenix's mentor at Forsyth was one of the founding fathers of drinking water fluoridation. He put her on this study of fluoride as a way to lose some guilt before dying. The deception is maintained by the living who are too busy protecting their egos to care about the effects of their actions.
Consider hydrochloric acid, a dangerous by-product of the industrial chlorination process. It's a corrosive poisonous liquid that is very hazardous in case of skin contact. It can cause organ failure and even death. The stuff etches steel and requires full hazmat gear for large spills.
Hydrochloric acid is also produced in the gastric glands of our stomach as part of the natural digestive process. So how is it that our own bodies produce and tolerate a dangerous industrial acid? It's all about the concentrations. In high concentrations hydrochloric acid will kill you, but diluted to 0.5% it's a harmless part of the digestive system. The same applies for most of the chemicals we regularly ingest. A high concentration of table salt is toxic, yet at low doses it's not toxic and it's even beneficial. Similarly, a high concentration of fluorosilicic acid is toxic, but at low doses it's not, and it's even proven to have beneficial properties.
Let's ignore the emotive editorializing and examine the study...
In this study small rats weighing 200 grams were given concentrations of fluoride that are equivalent to more than 30 times the safe limit for an adult. They kept giving the rats these dangerously high concentrations of fluoride until blood plasma counts showed 0.059-0.640 ppm. This is equivalent to what a person would experience if they were consistantly drinking water with fluoride concentrations at 7 to 14 times higher than the recommended level.
Their findings were inconclusive:
"Substances that accumulate in brain tissue potentiate concerns about neuorotoxic risks, but the conditions leading to fluoride deposits in any species are still not clear such that quantitative extrapolations are not possible at this time. Thus, conclusions concerning the neurotoxic potential of fluoride require further rat and human studies, both focused on the relationship of plasma fluoride levels with the brain, behavior, and skeletal growth."
Yes, questioning results and further research is always welcome and encouraged. However, the question of fluoride toxicity at levels found in drinking water has been examined extensively. There is no evidence of harm directly attributable to fluoridated water. The mild cosmetic effects of dental fluorosis attributed to fluoridated drinking water don't count.
Feel free to ingest as much of it as you want, just don't put it in my water, and be careful where you excrete because you're going to poison the environment when you do.
You're free to deny the evidence, but don't say it's not there.
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