High Court finds Ashley Bloomfield’s fluoride directive unlawful
The US National Toxicology Program (an Interagency run by the US Government’s Health and Human Services) released a draft report last Wednesday (15th March) linking prenatal and childhood fluoride exposure to reduced IQ in children, after public health officials tried for almost a year to block its publication. The report has been six years in the making and has been peer-reviewed multiple times.
A court order stemming from a lawsuit filed by Food and Water Watch and Fluoride Action Network against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) forced the report’s release.
The report said that total exposure to fluoride can be reached in communities with water fluoridated at 0.7ppm results in measurable IQ loss.(see pages 310, 346 and 352) . NZ research on lead shows that the level of IQ loss results in measurable negative life outcomes in terms of employment, income, and social mobility.
Research on other neurotoxins has shown that a small population-level effect can have significant impact on individuals at the high and low ends of a population curve. The NTP noted that “For example a 5-point decrease in a population’s IQ would nearly double the number of people classified as intellectually disabled.”
These findings fly in the face of the empty, unscientific claims health officials have propagated for years, namely that water fluoridation is safe. It’s well past time to eliminate this neurotoxin from our water supply.
NTP said “Our meta-analysis confirms results of previous meta-analyses and extends them by including newer, more precise studies with individual-level exposure measures.”
“The data support a consistent inverse association between fluoride exposure and children’s IQ …”
“The results were robust to stratifications by risk of bias, gender, age group, outcome assessment, study location, exposure timing, and exposure type (including both drinking water and urinary fluoride).”
Of the 19 high-quality studies assessing the association between fluoride and IQ in children, 18 reported an association between higher fluoride exposure and lower IQ in children. In total 52 studies out of 55 found evidence of that association.
The assessment of studies completely contradicts the claims of the Chief Science Advisor to the Prime Minister (CSAPM). NTP found that the key studies – Bashash, Green and Till, were of high quality and low risk of bias, while the Broadbent study that did not find an association was poor quality at high risk of bias. The report to the Director-General of Health relies on the CSAPM as key advice in its recommendation to direct local councils to fluoridate their water supplies.
For communities that have previously ceased fluoridation, like New Plymouth, Waipukurau, Ashburton, Timaru and Tauranga, these directives are like telling them to put lead back in petrol. We would be outraged if that happened. We must be equally outraged that fluoridation is being forced on the NZ public, and demand an immediate end to this ineffective and demonstrably unsafe practice.
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In moving the third reading of the Health (Fluoridation of Drinking Water) Amendment Bill on 9 November 2021, the Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall said: “We know that it probably close to halves or reduces by maybe 40 percent the lifetime risk of tooth decay for children and adolescents who are exposed to fluoride when they’re young.”
With statistics (2020) of children examined by the school dental service showing that 28,394 5-yr-olds were 57 percent caries free and 37,941 12-yr-olds 66 percent caries free it is economic and pharmacological lunacy to attempt closing those gaps by mass treating the population with a proven neurotoxin.
If the recently released US National Toxicology Program (NTP) on fluoride’s effect on the developing brain is ignored by the current Ministry of Health there is soon likely to be huge repercussions on Government administration as a whole
On incomplete initial returns from councils to the Ministry of Health for capital costs of mandated plant alone, in communities over 500 in excess of $150million would be imposed on the nation’s ratepayers – $63milion estimated in Canterbury alone. There is a miniscule $11.3million available for subsidy nation-wide from the Ministry.
Alternative and proven targeted approaches to improving dental health could be implemented at a small fraction of that aggregate national cost.
It is not before time that the Minister of Health (with support from the Minister of Finance) should be instructing the Acting Director-General of Health to put a stop order on all fluoridation directives and fluoridation capital development until the full implications of the NTP research for this country has been assessed via an independent inquiry.
Only looking at tooth decay and ignoring other effects is like applying a coat of paint to children and claiming it reduces their exposure to UV