Crown appeals High Court decision that requires Bill of Rights to be considered
Professor Jonathan Broadbent, the author of a study looking at the association between water fluoridation and the IQ of children living in Dunedin in 1970s, published in 2015, and heavily relied upon by the Chief Science Advisor, the Director-General of Health and other health officials in New Zealand, was interviewed last week by Jim Mora on RNZ.
They were discussing the findings of the US Government’s National Toxicology Program (NTP) that undertook an eight-year review into all fluoride-IQ studies. The NTP found that fluoride was indeed a neurotoxicant that can lower children’s IQ. The reviewers were most confident of this finding when total fluoride exposure was equivalent to drinking water containing 1.5 mg/L (i.e. 1.5 ppm) but noted that some of the highest quality studies came from Canada where water contained just 0.59 mg/L of fluoride.
The NTP found that babies exposed to fluoride in utero and babies that were bottle-fed with formula made with fluoridated water were most at risk for neurological harm. Mora therefore asked Broadbent about these two populations.
On pregnancy Broadbent said “..pregnant women are a special case that, I think that’s a particular population that would be of particular benefit to continue the research in…I’m of agreement that this is a population that needs plenty of thought and further research”.
On bottle-feeding babies he said “As far as mixing formula [with fluoridated water], this is something you might want to consider”.
It is important to note that most councils in New Zealand target 0.85 mg/L of fluoride and some are even targeting higher levels such as Whakatane which targets 0.9 mg/L of fluoride. This is substantially higher than fluoridation levels in Canada and the US.
Mora pointed out that the NTP review stated “that there is not enough data to conclude with certainty that fluoride at 0.7 mg/L lowers IQ”. Professor Broadbent agreed that we cannot be certain, but rather than reassuring listeners that 0.7 mg/L is safe, Broadbent replied “that is a pretty common thing for a researcher to say [that they cannot be certain]… They are not saying there is no evidence, they’re saying there’s conflicting studies”.
So now we are in a situation where the science on the safety of fluoridation is being acknowledged by fluoridation proponents as no longer settled.
We are pleased to hear that Professor Broadbent is raising concerns regarding exposure to fluoridated water during pregnancy and bottle-feeding babies. We believe this requires the Minister of Health or the Director General of Health to instigate an immediate moratorium on water fluoridation so that babies being born today are protected from the irreversible harm caused by unnecessary exposure to fluoride.
When we have New Zealand’s top dental researcher, who has researched fluoride and IQ himself and has previously been certain of fluoridation’s safety, express concerns, then it is absolutely imperative that these concerns be heeded. Even more so when two of the world’s leading experts on developmental neurotoxicity , Bruce Lanphear and Phillipe Grandjean, are saying there is strong evidence that babies and young children are being harmed.
At the end of the interview, Professor Broadbent said “if there is another health effect, then we would need to weigh that up, say one tooth compared to one IQ point”. He also pointed out that if there are any other health effects found by, e.g. toxicologists or psychologists, that the Government should listen.
Hear, hear Professor Broadbent. There is evidence of harm and our Government absolutely needs to listen.
Related posts
It is of major concern that health authorities in New Zealand are still relying on the Broadbent study in their ongoing resistance to growing knowledge of the neurotoxic effect of fluoride in community water supplies.
It is equally bad that the former Prime Minister’s chief science adviser and the Royal Society follow suit.
In his declaration to a Californian federal court Dr Phillippe Grandjean, a renowned Danish researcher into the developmental toxicity and adverse effects of certain environmental chemicals to which children are commonly exposed, said of the Broadbent study:
“The 2015 Broadbent study was based on a birth cohort established from births in 1972-1973 (Broadbent et al. 2015).
The 1,037 children were recruited at age 3 years, and IQ tests were administered at ages 7, 9, 11 and 13 years, and again at age 38.
Urine samples were again not available for analysis, and the authors had no individual data on water intake. Instead, the authors compared individuals who had lived for an undefined period of time in a fluoridated area during their first five years of life, with individuals who had not lived in a fluoridated area during their first five years.
No significant differences in IQ were noted using this exposure metric, and this finding was independent of potential confounding variables, including sex, socioeconomic status, breastfeeding, and birth weight.
The Broadbent study also made no attempt to ascertain prenatal exposures, including maternal tea consumption, which is an important limitation given the high rate of tea consumption in New Zealand.
Tea contains elevated levels of fluoride, and tea consumption can be a major source of fluoride intake among adults (Waugh 2017).
During the time that the children in this study were born (1972-1973), New Zealanders consumed as much as 2.6 kg of tea per capita per year (corresponding to 3-4 teabags per day), as compared to the consumption of 0.5 kg in Canada in the approximate time the MIREC cohort was recruited (Grigg 2002).
The failure of [the study] to consider maternal tea consumption may have introduced substantial imprecision into the exposure classification.
An additional concern is that the 10% of cohort subjects who had not lived in fluoridated areas very likely received fluoride supplements, which would eliminate much of the (postnatal) difference in exposure between the fluoridated and non-fluoridated areas.
In a letter published subsequent to the study, the authors estimated that the average difference in exposure between children in fluoridated vs. non-fluoridated areas was only 0.3 mg/day (Broadbent et al. 2016).
Based on the absence of individual measurements of exposure; failure to control for the timing of exposure, including prenatal exposures; and the relatively small difference in postnatal exposures in the Broadbent study, [this] New Zealand [study provides] virtually no information about the neurotoxic impact of early-life fluoride exposures. They carry little weight in my assessment.”