Fluoride found to lower IQ at exposure levels experienced with fluoridation, according to new review by US Govt scientists

A new US Government review of fluoride and IQ studies published Monday 6 January 2025 found that fluoride, even at levels experienced in New Zealand, was consistently associated with lower IQ in children and that this damage is permanent.

This review is hugely significant as it was carried out by the US Government’s top scientific body, the National Toxicology Program, and published in the world’s top pediatric journal. There is no way it can be dismissed as this is science at its best.

The review goes further than the NTP Review that was published in August last year that found “that higher levels of fluoride exposure, such as drinking water containing more than 1.5 milligrams of fluoride per liter, are associated with lower IQ in children”. 

This new review performed a separate analysis of studies where the fluoride levels were below 1.5 mg/L showing that neurotoxic harm is occurring even at these lower levels that people are exposed to from water fluoridation.  

The studies using urine fluoride levels found a statistically significant inverse association between fluoride and IQ. The studies using water fluoride levels also found an inverse association but only when confined to the high-quality studies. i.e. including low-quality studies using water fluoride levels below 1.5 mg/L, the inverse relationship was not statistically significant.

Despite the robustness of this evidence, fluoridation promoters are still casting doubt on these findings, in much the same way the tobacco industry cast doubt on the research that cigarette smoking was causing lung diseases, and the NZ Ministry of Health denied Lead in petrol was causing neurological harm to children.

But Prof Kevin McConway of the ardently pro-fluoridation Science Media Centre has had to admit that there are now doubts about fluoridation’s safety. He says, “Finding consistent results from several observational studies and from different types of statistical analysis, as is the case in this new research, does tend to increase confidence that the fluoride is somehow causing the differences in average IQ, but really, evidence of different types would need to be considered too, before one could really be confident about what is causing what.” 

Considering fluoride is added to the public drinking water and is deemed by the NZ Supreme Court as “compulsory medical treatment”, meaning that everyone, including pregnant women and bottle-fed babies, are being forcibly fed fluoride, there is an urgent need for the New Zealand Government to implement the Precautionary Principle and stop this practice immediately. 

And what makes it all the more compelling to do so, is that all recent large studies on fluoridation and dental decay show there is no real difference between fluoridated and non-fluoridated areas, so this is not even a case of weighing pros and cons. 

Lead was not stopped in paint and petrol until 1996 – 26 years after it was stopped in the US. We cannot allow that to happen again.

More information can be found at Fluoride Action Network and CNN.