Sir, – A new report just published in The Lancet Neurology lists fluoride as a toxin that contributes to neurodevelopmental disabilities in children. The authors of this study state that a growing body of research is finding links between higher levels of these toxins in expectant mothers' blood and urine and brain disorders in their children. The developing brain in particular, they say, is vulnerable to the effects of these chemicals, and in many cases, the changes they trigger are permanent. These findings are particularly relevant to the Republic, being the only EU country with a mandatory legislative policy of mass fluoridation of its citizens. In addition to higher levels of fluoride exposure in the Republic compared to other EU countries, the Republic has the lowest prevalence of breast feeding among EU countries and alarmingly the European Food Safety Authority have reported that infants fed formula milk constituted with fluoridated tap water significantly exceed the tolerable upper safe limit of fluoride exposure that has been established for a healthy adult.
The authors of this current study note, that exposure to toxins such as fluorides can result in brain damage and impaired central nervous system function that lasts a lifetime and might result in reduced intelligence, as expressed in terms of lost IQ points, or behavioural abnormalities that limits future development and is damaging to society. Given the alarming rise in recent decades of neurodevelopmental disabilities among children in Ireland, which has occurred in parallel with the increased prevalence of dental fluorosis, a condition that demonstrates a chronic overexposure of infants to this toxin; urgent action must now be taken to reduce the current unsafe levels of exposure of infants and expectant mothers to this toxin. This can only be achieved by ending artificial fluoridation of drinking water. – Yours, etc,
DECLAN WAUGH,
Scientist and
Fluoride Researcher,
O’Doherty’s Road,
Bandon,
Co Cork.