Originally Posted By: BigCityHillbilly
http://www2.fluoridealert.org/Alert/China/Fluoride-in-Water-Linked-to-Lower-IQ-in-Children

I saw that press release when it first came out, too. Unfortunately, that particular paper has since been withdrawn.

But there are multiple citations here regarding flouride and the brain. Anyone who wants to do some reading, knock yourself out. At least a half dozen of the human research papers can be accessed online, without visiting your friendly neighborhood university school library.

Here is the 2006 report by a committee of the National Research Council, an arm of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences, on flouride in drinking water. Regarding neurotoxic effects, the committee stated:

Quote:
"A few epidemiologic studies of Chinese populations have reported IQ deficits in children exposed to fluoride at 2.5 to 4 mg/L in drinking water. Although the studies lacked sufficient detail for the committee to fully assess their quality and relevance to U.S. populations, the consistency of the results appears significant enough to warrant additional research on the effects of fluoride on intelligence."


Do these papers "prove" anything about flouride's effect on the brain? Well, it's still too early to say, but even the NRC is saying that it looks like there might be something to it, so we should investigate. There is still much, much more research to be done on flouride, even though we've been adding it to our water supply for 50-60 years. I get the impression that there has been far more research into BPA's effects than flouride so far, so there's a lot that we still don't understand. However, although the jury is still out on BPA, we have steadily seen more and more restrictions on BPA as more science comes out against it. In fact, the Dept of Health and Human Services just came out and recommended lowering the level of flouride in drinking water from a range of 0.7 to 1.2 ppm to just a straight 0.7 ppm--the first change to the recommendation since the 60's, I believe. However, it's still up to the EPA to make the final decision on whether to lower the current 4 ppm maximum limit.

I don't know about the Commie angle, but the potential health effects of flouride are far from tin foil hat territory.

Oh, another interesting (and disturbing) brain angle with flouride is that it can release large amounts of aluminum, like when boiling flouridated water in aluminum cookware. There was one study that demonstrated that 1 ppm of flouride could release 200 ppm of aluminum (sorry, I forget the citation). Alzheimer's is becoming more common (faster than the population is aging) and aluminum exposure has been linked to it, so it makes you wonder...

Unfortunately, from what I have read in the past, most government agencies and panels only talk about two particular health problems--dental and skeletal flourosis. They totally ignore even mentioning other potential problems that scientists have found.