In a study just published in Environmental Health Perspectives,25 evidence is presented that water fluoridation impacts childhood intellectual development. The study is significant because the investigators controlled for key confounding variables and also found lower IQ correlated both with fluoride levels in drinking water and fluoride levels found in children’s blood. Two essentially equivalent villages were compared. About 28% of the children in the low-fluoride village scored as bright, or of higher intelligence whereas the figure was 8% in the high fluoride village. Mental retardation rates also differed with 6% in the low-fluoride village, 15% in the high fluoride area.
The director of the Fluoride Action Network commented in a press release (PR Newswire, December 21) that this is the 24th study that found this association and it is scientifically the strongest yet and is most suggestive of a cause and effect relationship. He also points to a report in 2005 from the National Research Council of the National Academies (US) that found the link between fluoride exposure and lowered IQ both consistent and plausible.
Since public health authorities appear to ignore this problem, the only simple solution is an in-home reverse osmosis system for drinking and cooking water. They are not that expensive, fit under many kitchen counters, and remove a vast number of other undesirable or dangerous substances commonly found in municipal drinking water