Canadian studies confirm findings of Broadbent et al (2015) – fluoridation has no effect on child IQ

Readers may remember the scathing reaction of anti-fluoride campaigners to the paper of Broadbent et al (2015). This was the first paper to compare child and adult IQ levels for people living in fluoridated and unfluoridated areas.

The anti-fluoride campaigners were extremely rude in their reaction – accusing the authors of fraud and claiming the paper was “fatally flawed.” Interestingly, several scientists known for their anti-fluoride bias also launched attacks – but more respectably as letters to the editor of the journal. For example, see articles by Osmunson et al (2016),  Grandjean (2015),; and Menkes et al (2014).

And why? Simply because Broadbent et al (2015) showed there was no difference in IQ of people living in fluoridated areas. That the studies from areas of endemic fluorosis used by anti-fluoride activists to argue at CWF were just not relevant (see Child IQ in countries with endemic fluorosis imply fluoridation is safe).

But isn’t it strange? Two more recent papers (Green et al 2019 & Till et al 2020) have effectively repeated the work of Broadbent et al (2015). They found the same result – no difference in IQ of children living in fluoridated and unfluoridated areas. And simply no reaction, no condemnation from anti-fluoride activists or the anti-fluoride scientists.

No condemnation because these anti-fluoride critics promote these papers for other reasons. But this underlines how biased the critics of the Broadbent et al (2015) paper were.

I have completed a detailed analysis of all the 65 studies the Fluoride Action Network (FAN) lists as evidence that community water fluoridation (CWF) is harmful to child IQ. The full analysis is available for download as the document Analysis of FAN’s 65 brain-fluoride studies.

In this article, I discuss the studies in the FAN’s list (see “FLUORIDE & IQ: THE 65 STUDIES”) which compare child IQ in areas of “fluoridated” and “unfluoridated” fluoride in Canada. Only two studies – but I include that of Broadbent et al (2015) (which FAN’s list ignores) for completeness. All three studies found no difference in the IQ of children living in fluoridated and unfluoridated areas.

Comparing IQ of children in fluoridated and unfluoridated areas

The table below summarises the results reported by all three studies – Broadbent et al (2015), Green et al (2019), and Till et al (2020).

Table 1: Results from studies comparing IQ of children and adults from fluoridated and fluoridated areas

Notes:
Data from Green et al (2019) for children whose mothers lived in fluoridated or unfluoridated areas during pregnancy.
Data from Till et al (2020) for children either breastfed of formula-fed as babies while living in fluoridated or unfluoridated areas.

There is absolutely no difference in IQ due to fluoridation. Remember, the standard dedication of the values in the table are about 13 to 16 IQ points.

I have presented all the results from these papers graphically below. FSIQ is the normal IQ measurement. VIQ (Verbal IQ) and PIQ (Performance IQ) are subsets of FSIQ.

The only statistically significant differences between fluoridated and unfluoridated areas were for VIQ of breastfed babies (VIQ higher for fluoridated areas) and PIQ of formula-fed babies (PIQ lower for fluoridated areas).

Anti-fluoride campaigners and (biased scientists like Grandjean) love the Green et al (2019) and Till et al (2020) papers because they reported (very weak) negative relationships of some child cognitive measures with fluoride intake ( I discuss this in separate articles). This is largely a result of the statistical methods used – particularly resorting to several different cognitive measures and measures of fluoride exposure, as well as the separation of results according to gender. Reminds me of the old saying that one can always get the results one requires by torturing the data hard enough.

I will return to the statistical problems of these and similar papers in a separate article.

Misrepresentation by anti-fluoride activists

Anti-fluoride campaigners have latched on to the two Canadian studies – often making claims that simply are not supported. But always ignoring the data shown above.

For example – this propaganda poster from FAN promoting the Green et al (2019) study.

This completely misrepresents the results of the study. No difference was found in the IQs of children from fluoridated and unfluoridated areas. These people completely ignore that result while placing unwarranted faith in the weak relationships reported elsewhere in that paper. (In fact, Green et al (2019) found a weak significant relationship only for boys – the relationships for all children and for girls were not significant. See my articles about this statistical torture).

And this FAN propaganda poster promoting the Till et al (2020) study.

Again – completely wrong. There was no difference in IQ of formula-fed babies in fluoridated and unfluoridated areas (see Table 1 above). Even worse – FAN is misrepresenting the statistical relationships reported in this paper as there’s was no statistically significant relationship between child IQ and fluoride exposure for formula-fed our breastfed babies once the influence of outliers and/or confounders were considered.

Misrepresentation by anti-fluoride scientists

It is understandable, I guess, that the authors of the two Canadian papers make a lot of the poor statistical relationships they reported and ignored the fact that they did not see any effect of fluoridation. Perhaps they can be excused some bias due to professional ambition. But this underlines why sensible readers should always critically and intelligently read the papers in this controversial area. One should never rely on the public relations claims of authors and their institutes. But it is sad to see how scientific basis and ambitions can lead scientists to support the claims of political activists. or worse, to attack honest scientists who do post-publication peer review of the studies (see for example When scientists get political: Lead fluoride-IQ researcher launches emotional attack on her scientific critics).

I am also very critical of scientific supporters of these studies who have their own anti-fluoride motivations. Philippe Grandjean, for example, was one of the authors very critical of the Broadbent et al (2015) paper and ignored completely the fact that the Green et al (2019) and Till et al (2020) papers report exactly the same result – no effect of fluoridation on child IQ. Grandjean often makes public comments supporting the claims of anti-fluoride campaigners like FAN. He also behaved in a scientifically unethical way when he refused to allow my critique of the flawed paper by Malin & Till (2015) to be published in Environmental Health – the journal he acts as the chief editor of (see Fluoridation not associated with ADHD – a myth put to rest).

I am repeating myself but it is a matter of “reader beware.” Readers should not simply rely on the scientific “standing” of authors who are only human and suffer from the same biases as others. They should read these papers for themselves and make up their own mind about what the data actually says.

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