Current research and critiques of fluoride have been cited as grounds for this 12 months’s bans on group water fluoridation (CWF) in Florida and Utah. These research have spurred concern and dialogue amongst well being professionals. In a brand new peer-reviewed article, two pediatricians share their views and the way they’re speaking with dad and mom about fluoride.
In a commentary printed in Pediatrics Open Science, Drs. Charlotte Lewis and Susan Fisher-Owens mirror on the various research which were launched lately. They warning readers that some research must be seen with warning due to how they had been designed and the way in which by which publicity to fluoride was measured.
The very best profile of those paperwork was launched final 12 months by the Nationwide Toxicology Program (NTP). Opponents of fluoridation incessantly cite the NTP’s 2024 monograph in reasoning why states or communities ought to finish CWF.
Nevertheless, Drs. Lewis and Fisher-Owens remind us that the monograph was rejected twice throughout assessment by the Nationwide Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Drugs. They write, “Along with inclusion of low-quality research, [the National Academies’] concern is that NTP ‘didn’t make it clear that the monograph can’t be used to attract any conclusions’ “about fluoridated water in america. Many research had been carried out in elements of the world the place the pure fluoride in water is as a lot as twice what we use within the US.
“As with different micronutrients,” Drs. Lewis and Fisher-Owens write, “there’s a believable threshold of fluoride publicity above that are antagonistic neurocognitive results. Primarily based on the preponderance of high-quality proof, such a threshold is considerably larger than in CWF. We proceed to assist CWF as a protected, cost-effective, equitable technique for cavity prevention and urge our colleagues to do the identical.”
