Anti-fluoride groups cite an outdated report in federal court

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Nov 21, 2022, 09:15 ET

American Fluoridation Society comments on this draft report

WASHINGTON, Nov. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Groups opposed to water fluoridation are in federal court, citing an outdated draft report about children's intelligence (IQ) by the U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP) to attack the public health practice of fluoridation. These groups ignore or downplay crucial facts about this outdated draft report. The American Fluoridation Society is sharing six facts to inform the public, researchers and health professionals:

The NTP document is an outdated draft from over two years ago. It is one of two draft reports that failed to pass the peer review process. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine conducted this peer review in 2021, writing that NTP did not provide "clear and convincing" evidence for its conclusions about adverse effects. Fluoridation foes have referred to the NTP draft report without any mention that it failed to clear peer review.
In its review, the National Academies instructed NTP to "make clear that the [report] cannot be used to draw conclusions about low fluoride exposure concentrations (less than 1.5 mg/L), including those in fluoridated drinking water systems." This reflects the fact that many of the studies reviewed by NTP's draft report tested levels of fluoride well above the levels used for water fluoridation.
NTP chose to abandon its peer review relationship with the National Academies. This decision suggests that NTP lacked confidence that it could make a convincing case to support its previous conclusions about fluoride.
Since its drafts failed to clear peer review, NTP agreed not to make a hazard assessment statement about fluoride in its upcoming "state of the science" report at any level of exposure. This indicates that NTP agrees with the National Academies that labeling fluoride as a neurodevelopmental hazard is not appropriate. There is no consensus among researchers about the biological mechanism through which fluoride could affect cognition, even at higher natural levels of fluoride exposure in China and India.
The NTP draft report is outdated because it does not include any fluoride studies published after 2019. And sources have indicated that the next version of NTP's report also will not include any post-2019 studies. This means the NTP's "confidence" rating for its analysis was reached without including recent studies from Australia and Spain. Both of these studies cleared peer review and found no link between fluoride exposure and cognitive deficits in children.
The research cited by opponents (including numerous studies in the last NTP draft) suffers from serious methodological issues. In fact, a 2020 fluoride-IQ study was recently retracted after the journal BMC Public Health found "inconsistencies in methodology and major misinterpretation of the primary result." Even the 2019 Canadian study, whose findings are cited often by opponents, must now be viewed with serious doubts. One reason why is that a reanalysis of the study's underlying data reported that fluoride exposures "do not significantly associate with IQ outcomes once city is controlled and FDR (false discovery rate) is applied."

Policy-makers should be aware of these facts about the NTP draft report because critics of fluoridation have frequently cited this draft report to raise unfounded concerns about fluoride, encouraging communities to cease water fluoridation. Multiple studies reveal increases in tooth decay and higher treatment costs after cities ceased fluoridation. An Alaska study found that after a city stopped fluoridation, the average preschool-age child from low income families needed one additional decay-related treatment each year at a cost of about $300.

Like the issue of vaccinations, fluoride is the target of a variety of myths and conspiracy theories. The American Fluoridation Society offers fact sheets and other materials that distinguish the myths from the facts.

The American Fluoridation Society and the British Fluoridation Society have produced a guide to help health and science professionals better understand the issues that can arise from studies about fluoride. This guide can be downloaded at https://www.porh.psu.edu/how-to-read-a-study-about-fluoride-or-fluoridation/. For more information about the American Fluoridation Society, visit https://americanfluoridationsociety.org/.

Contact: Dr. Johnny Johnson at 727-409-1770
or [email protected]

SOURCE American Fluoridation Society