Opponents of fluoridation all at sea with new legislation

Image credit: Why Ideology and Science Don’t Mix

Opponents of community water fluoridation (CWF) should be supporting the proposed fluoridation legislation instead of organising opposition to it.

Think about it.

If Fluoride Free NZ (FFNZ) was honest in its claim that they are “New Zealand’s leading advocate for science in the fluoridation debate” (see their press release  Open letter to Hon Andrew little, Minister of Health) then they should be supporting science rather than ideology and insist on the best scientific scrutiny of information relating to fluoridation.

If they honestly accept the claims of those cherry-picked anti-fluoride scientists they are quoting in their social media memes then they should welcome the opportunity to expose the research of those scientists to a proper critical review.

With scientific backers like this, opponents of community water fluoridation should be welcoming the new fluoridation legislation (example of social media memes promoted by the Fluoride Action Network)

And they should welcome the proposal that the proper place for such a scientific review is the office of the Director-general of health which can call on the best scientists for information and review of the evidence. That proposal is an integral part of the draft legislation which requires that the Director-General must consider the scientific evidence related to community water fluoridation before making a direction that CWF be introduced or stopped in a region (see clause 116E : Director-General may direct local authority to add or not to add fluoride to drinking water in the Supplementary Order Paper).

So, it appears strange that instead of welcoming the new legislation FFNZ is mobilising their supporters to oppose it. And their US colleagues at the Fluoridation Action Network are pouring their resources into the FFNZ campaign.

But why? It is ridiculous for pro-science people to campaign to retain the old system where the evaluation of evidence and decisions on CWF were made by scientific and political naive councillors in local bodies. Councillors who could be easily captured by activists and fooled by their misrepresentation of the science., Councillors who are more concerned with their next election or chances of claiming the Mayor’s job than any science. And councillors who are already predisposed to the claims of the activists, who may indeed be activists themselves, who were more concerned with ideological orientation than any science.

If the fluoridation opponents organised by FFNZ are really “leading advocates for science” and want recent research they are promoting to be considered in fluoridation decisions then they would be supporting the new legislation rather than opposing it.

Ideological distortion of science

I really wonder at a group of ideologically motivated people making submissions promoting their understanding (or misunderstanding) of the science to the Parliamentary Health Committee when that committee is simply not tasked with considering the science. Its job is to consider proposals for the reorganisation of the mechanism for making fluoridation decisions – nothing to do with science itself.

Instead of wasting their submissions on this bill, they should be saving them for promotion of their beliefs about what the science claims to the Director-General of Health and his/her staff. Once this bill is passed the Director-General of Health’s office should be a great place for these claims to be properly considered and reviewed.

That would be a vast improvement on the old situation when they took their arguments to scientifically and politically naive local body councils. Or brought in US anti-fluoridation spokesmen to speak to audiences of homoeopaths, head massagers and other alternative health advocates and their followers.

Or perhaps I am the naive one. Perhaps fluoridation opponents prefer to make their arguments to those local body councillors instead of scientifically capable people. Perhaps FFNZ is dishonest to claim they are ““New Zealand’s leading advocate for science in the fluoridation debate.” 

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An open letter to Paul Connet and the anti-fluoride movement

Image credit: How to Effectively Share Your Knowledge

Paul Connett and Vyvyan Howard have, through the local Fluoride Free New Zealand activist group, published an open letter addressed to NZ scientists and educators (see An Open Letter To NZ Scientists And Educators). It is strange to encourage scientific exchanges through press releases but if they are seriously interested in an exchange of informed scientific opinion on the research they mention I am all for it.

In fact, I renew my offer to Paul Connett for a new exchange on the new relevant research along the lines of the highly successful scientific exchange we had in 2013/2014 summarised in Conett & Perrott (2014) The Fluoride Debate.

Connett and Howard say they felt “let down” by the reception they received in their 2018 visit. But they should realise this sort of ridicule is inevitable when a supposedly scientific message is promoted by activist fringe groups with known funding by big business (in this case the “natural”/alternative health industry). The science should be treated more respectably and discussed in a proper scientific forum or via a proper scientific exchange rather than political style activist meetings.

It is this sort of respectable, informed and open scientific exchange I am offering to Paul Connett and Vyvyan Hoard.

Connett and Howard argue that there has recently been  “a dramatic change in the quality of these [fluoride] studies.” I agree that new research occurs all the time and there is plenty of scope upgrading of the scientific exchange we had in 2013/2014 to cover that new research. Consideration of the new research requires the objective, critical and intelligent consideration scientists are well used to and this is not helped by activist propaganda meetings. So I encourage Connett and Howard to accept my offer. after all, if they are confident in their own analysis of this research what do they have to lose?

Inaccuracies in “open letter”

One can see an “Open letter” as displaying a willingness to enter into a proper scientific exchange. However, Connett and Vivyan’s open letter includes inaccuracies and misinformation on the new research which simply demonstrates that a one-sided presentation cannot present the research findings properly.

For example, they misrepresent the 2014 New Zealand fluoridation review of Eason et al (2014). Health effects of water fluoridation: A review of the scientific evidence. Even to the extent of mistaking the authors (not Gluckman & Skegg as they claim) and misrepresenting the small mistake made in the summary which was later corrected. That attitude does not bode well for the proper consideration of the research.

Connett and Howard concentrate on new research relating child IQ to fluoride intake but they ignore completely the fact that all the research comparing IQ in fluoridated and unfluoridated areas show absolutely no effect. I have summarised the results for the three papers involve in this table.

Instead, they concentrated on a few extremely weak relationships reported in a few papers. But even here they get this wrong – for example, they say there is “a loss of about 4 IQ points in offspring for a range of 1 mg/liter of fluoride in mother’s urine.” The paper they refer to (Green et al 2019) actually found no statistically significant relationship between child IQ and maternal urinary fluoride for all children considered. The relationship Connett and Howard mention was actually for male children (no relationship for female children or for all children) and was very weak. These sort of weak relationships are commonly found in epidemiological research and are usually meaningless. In this case, Connett and Howard have simply cherry-picked one value and misrepresented it as applying to all children.

Both the Green et al (2019) and Till et al (2020) papers Connett and Howard refer to suffer from selecting a few weak statistically significant relationships and ignoring the larger number of non-significant relationships they found for the data they investigated. Connett and Howard also completely ignored the new studies that don’t fit their claims. For example that of Santa-Marina et al (2019). Fluorinated water consumption in pregnancy and neuropsychological development of children at 14 months and 4 years of age. which showed an opposite positive relationship of child IQ with maternal urinary fluoride. Similar they ignored the large Swedish study of Aggeborn & Öhman (2020). The Effects of Fluoride in the Drinking Water showing no effect of fluoride on IQ but positive effects on oral health and employment possibilities in later life.

In conclusion, I reiterate that genuine open scientific exchanges do not take place via press release and activist meetings. However, the fact that Connett and Howard have issued an “Open Letter” could be interpreted as inviting others to participate in a proper exchange. I endorse that concept and offer Connett and Howard space for a free and open exchange on the new research at this blog site.

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Even studies from endemic fluorosis areas show fluoride is not harmful at levels used in fluoridation

Most of the claims made by anti-fluoride propagandists are simply wrong. Image source: Fluoridation and the ‘sciency’ facts of critics

Anti-fluoride propagandists continually cite studies from areas of endemic fluorosis in their arguments against community water fluoridation (CWF). But if they critically looked at the data in those papers they might get a shock. Invariably the published data, even from areas of endemic fluorosis, shows fluoride is safe at the concentrations relevant to CWF.

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 report relationships between child IQ and fluoride exposure in areas of endemic fluorosis. There are eleven such studies in the FAN list but only six of them provide sufficient data to enable independent statistical analysis.

While those six studies do show a statically significant (p<0.05) negative relationship of IQ with fluoride intake those results are not relevant to CWF because the fluoride as exposure levels are much higher than ever occurs with CWF.

However, it is possible to investigate if the relationships are significant at lower concentrations more relevant to CWF. I have done this with these six studies and illustrate the result obtained with these graphs below using the data extracted from Xiang et al (2003). (This study is often used by anti-fluoride campaigners).

The red data points in the figures below are for lower concentrations of urinary F or creatinine adjusted urinary F. The range for the red points is still quite a bit larger than urinary F levels measured for children in areas where CWF is used. However, we can see that the relationships at these lower ranges are not statistically significant (results from regression analyses cited in figures).

 

This was also the case with the other studies from FAN’s list which provided sufficient data for regression analyses. I summarise the results obtained for five of these studies in the figure below.

This show that none of the studies found statistically significant relationships with fluoride exposure for the low fluoride concentration relevant to CWF. The situation is basically the same for the sixth study, Mustafa et al (2018), which reports average school subject performances for a range of subjects for children in Khartoum state, Sudan. However, it is hard to know what the safe limit for fluoride exposure is in that climate (for climatic reasons the upper permissible F level in drinking water is set at 0.33 ppm for Khartoum state) and the sample numbers are low. Interested readers should consult my report – Analysis of FAN’s 65 brain-fluoride studies.

Conclusion

Anti-fluoride campaigners often cite FAN’s list (“FLUORIDE & IQ: THE 65 STUDIES”) in their attempts to argue that fluoridation is bad for the child’s brain. But in these series of articles Anti-fluoride 65 brain-fluoride studies not evidence against fluoridation, I have shown that their arguments are false.

In Child IQ in countries with endemic fluorosis imply fluoridation is safe I showed that while IQ and other health problems may occur where fluoride exposure is very high in areas of endemic fluorosis the reports themselves implicitly assume that the low fluoride exposure in the “low fluoride” areas is safe. It is the data from these areas, not the “high fluoride” areas, that are relevant to CWF. So despite the heavy use of these articles by FAN and anti-fluoride activists these studies do not prove what they claim. If anything these studies show CWF is safe.

In this article, I considered a few of these studies which included data relevant to low fluoride exposure. When the low fluoride exposure data (relevant to CWF)  from these studies were statistically analysed none of them showed significant relationships of child IQ to fluoride exposure. That confirms the implicit assumption from these studies that there is no negative effect of fluoride exposure on child IQ at these low levels.

Finally, in Canadian studies confirm findings of Broadbent et al (2015) – fluoridation has no effect on child IQ I summarise results from the only three studies where comparisons of IQ for children living in fluoridated and unfluoridated areas are compared. These studies were made in New Zealand and Canada and the results were the same. No statistically significant differences in child IQ were found.

However, the authors of the Canadian studies ignored this result and instead used questionable statistical methods to search for possible relationships between fluoride exposure and child IQ. Most of the relationships they report were not statistically significant but, nevertheless, they and their supporters have simply ignored this and concentrated on the few statically significant relationships.

Anti-fluoride activists currently rely strongly on these studies and heavily promote them. I will discuss these few studies further in my next article.

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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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Child IQ in countries with endemic fluorosis imply fluoridation is safe.

Anti-fluoride activists love to point out that people living in endemic fluorosis areas in countries like China suffer all sorts of health problems, including lower IQ. But studies of these areas show no lowering of IQ in the low fluoride areas relevant to community water fluoridation.

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 “low” and “high” fluoride in countries like China, Mexico, Iran, Egypt, and India where fluorosis is endemic. In fact, all these studies either assume or provide evidence that fluoride at the concentrations used for CWF is harmless.

IQ differences for “high” and “low” fluoride areas

FAN was really dredging through very poor research to find these studies. In fact, FAN had to go to the trouble of translating many of these studies because they were obscure and not available in English.

Of their 65 studies, 17  do not provide data for fluoride intake or for drinking water fluoride concentrations. Instead, they simply describe the “high” areas as endemic fluorosis areas or areas where people suffer severe dental or skeletal fluorosis. Several of the studies used “control” groups from areas of “slight” fluorosis or dental fluorosis in contrast to skeletal fluorosis.

Another 29 studies did provide water fluoride concentrations for the “low” fluoride and “high” fluoride areas. This data is useful as it enables us to consider how relevant the results are to CWF. I have summarised the data in Figure 1.

The take-home message from Figure 1 is that while these 29 studies do show a decrease in child IQ in areas of “high” fluoride those areas are not relevant to CWF. In fact, the only relevance to CWF are the areas of “low” fluoride where there is the implicit assumption that child IQ is not affected. We can also assume this is the case for the 17 studies which do not provide details of fluoride exposure.

Figure 1: Comparison of water fluoride levels in “high” and “low” fluoride areas of 29 of the FAN studies and in areas where CWF is used.

So these 46 studies heavily promoted by FAN over recent years do not show any harm from CWF – in fact, all these studies implicitly assume there is no negative effect on child IQ at the “low” fluoride levels studied – and these are the areas most relevant to CWF. A simple consideration of the health problems faced by people living in areas of endemic fluorosis should have made it obvious that the data for high fluoride areas is simply not relevant. Consider these figures from Das et al (2016) – one never sees people like this in areas where CWF is used:

Dental fluorosis case found in the study area (age: 12, sex: male). Das et al (2016)

Skeletal fluorosis case found in the study area (age: 17, sex: male). Das et al (2016)

FAN is simply silly to suggest these studies, and especially the results for the “high” fluoride areas, area at all relevant to CWF.

Mind you, Paul Connett, FAN Director, likes to draw attention to one of these studies where he claims the “high” fluoride area has a drinking- water fluoride concentration of 0.81 mg/L which is similar to that for CWF. He is simply dredging the data (and ignoring all the other studies he cites)  to make this claim. The study he refers to was made in an area of iodine deficiency and is extremely weak – simply and half pages in a Chinese newsletter. Have a look for yourself – Lin et al (1991).

In a future article, I will discuss the studies in FAN’s list which compare IQ for children from fluoridated and unfluoridated areas.

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Anti-fluoride 65 brain-fluoride studies not evidence against fluoridation

Activists like ant-fluoride and anti-vaccination propagandists are very selective about the studies they promote. But their bias often means they get even these ones wrong. FAN’s 65 brain-fluoride studies are an example of this. Image credit: Don’t let confirmation bias narrow your perspective

Anti-fluoride and anti-vaccination activists suffer from a common activist fallacy – they believe their own propaganda. They also have a network of “natural”/alternative health industry internet sites and magazines to disseminate these beliefs and propaganda. A glaring example is a smug article, The End of Fluoridation Is in Sight, published on the Mercola.com alternative health, anti-vaccination site.

The uninformed reader looking at these alternative health industry sources might be excused for thinking that community water fluoridation (CWF) is about to end. That the scientific evidence against it is damning. But, of course, those conclusions are wrong – the science supporting CWF remains strong and the few studies activists use to argue against CWF have big flaws.

Actually, the situation is even worse than that. The studies commonly cited by anti-fluoride activists actually support CWF when they are read properly. Activists are unaware of this because they rarely read the studies they cite – most don’t get past the title, let alone the abstract, and certainly don’t bother with the real content. And they never subject these studies to critical analysis.

The Fluoride Action Network (FAN) has collected  together all the studies they argue show CWF is bad for children’s brains in a single list – “FLUORIDE & IQ: THE 65 STUDIES.” I have completed a detailed analysis of all the 65 studies and my full analysis is available for download as the document Analysis of FAN’s 65 brain-fluoride studies.

In fact, none of these studies in FAN’s list provides any credible evidence that CWF is harmful to child IQ. On the contrary, these studies either assume or provide evidence that fluoride at the concentrations used for CWF is harmless.

I will summarise my findings of these studies in a series of upcoming articles as my health permits (I have just spent a couple of stressful weeks in hospital).

1. Difference studies – a simple comparison of cognitive measures in people living in “low fluoride and “high fluoride” areas. Forty-six studies made in areas of endemic fluorosis – India, China, Mexico, Iran, and Sudan. All these studies implicitly assume no negative health effects at fluoride concentration relevant to CWF
2. Three difference studies relevant to CWF where populations in non-fluoridated and fluoridated areas are compared. All these studies show no effect of CWF on child IQ.
3. Studies which derive relationships of cognitive measurements with fluoride exposure in areas of endemic fluorosis. Six of these studies include enough data for testing if there is a statistically significant effect at concentrations relevant to CWF – there is no effect observed in all these cases.
4. Three studies deriving relationships for cognitive measurements with fluoride exposure in low fluoride areas where concentrations are relevant to CWF. These controversial studies involve considerable statistical manipulations and activists cherry-pick a few statistically significant relationship but ignore the many more non-significant relationships.

Read my article Analysis of FAN’s 65 brain-fluoride studies if you want the detailed analysis. Otherwise, just follow my summaries in future posts.

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Another study used by anti-fluoride activists actually shows community water fluoridation OK

Another study comparing effect in children from nonendemic areas (Dagang) and endemic fluorosis area (Jinghai) about 80km apart in the Tianjin area of China. Hardly sampling the same population.

Anti-fluoride campaigners still use studies from endemic fluorosis area of China in their campaign against community water fluoridation (CWF). This misrepresents the situation. While the control areas they use (non-endemic fluorosis areas where there are no health effects) are relevant to CWF the data from the endemic fluorosis areas where fluoride intake is high are simply not relevant to CWF.

However, some of these studies provide enough information to enable checking for health effects in the control, non-endemic fluorosis areas. I discuss one of these studies below – Cui et al (2018) – and show it finds no health effects at the low fluoride concentration relevant to CWF. The use of this study in anti-fluoride campaigns is therefore misleading.

I also show how even in his misrepresentation of this study the “Research Director” of the Fluoride Action Network (FAN), Chris Neurath, makes basic mathematical mistakes.

The citation for this study is:

Cui, Y., Zhang, B., Ma, J., Wang, Y., Zhao, L., Hou, C., … Liu, H. (2018). Dopamine receptor D2 gene polymorphism, urine fluoride, and intelligence impairment of children in China: A school-based cross-sectional study. Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety, 165(August), 270–277.

The study used school children (7 to 12 years old) from the districts of Jinghai and Dagang in Tianjin of China (see map above). The endemic fluorosis area had drinking water fluoride concentrations of 1.52–2.49 mg/L and the nonendemic fluorosis area had drinking water fluoride concentrations of 0.20–1.00 mg/L.

Of course, the results for children in the endemic fluorosis area are simply not relevant to CWF where the drinking water concentrations are usually less than 0.8 mg/L.

ONLY THE DATA FROM THE NON-ENDEMIC FLUOROSIS AREA IS RELEVANT TO CWF.

Child IQ values were compared with urinary fluoride levels and regression analysis used to determine if there was any relationship. The children were also tested for the presence of different genes and each of three different genetic groups was considered separately.

Skewed data

The data from both endemic and non-endemic fluorosis areas were combined. That for urinary F was skewed and had to be transformed to provide the normal data distribution required for linear regression analysis. Consequently, the authors report linear regression results for the relationship of child IQ to the logarithm of urinary F [Log(UF)].

No statistically significant relationships were found for two of the genotypes (designated CC & CT) but there was a significant relationship for the genotype designated TT. Less than 14% of the children had this gene.

Figure from Cui et al (2018) showing a negative relationship of child IQ with the logarithm of urinary fluoride. Equation of fitted line is IQ = 117.48 – 9.75*Log(UF). R-squared = 0.142, p = 0.012. 95% CI for coefficient -17.21,-2.29

So, of course, the anti-fluoride campaigners simply go with the results for the children with the TT gene and ignore the results for the other 86% of children.

Nothing new here – they always ignore results that they can not use in their campaigns to confirm their biased presentations.

Analysis of the data for the low fluoride levels relevant to CWF doesn’t support activist claims

Here I will just consider the data relevant to CWF. After digitally extracting the data from the figures in the paper I restricted linear regression analysis to the children with urinary F values of less than 2 mg/L (which is still rather high for areas where CWF is used). The figure below displays that data, together with the results of linear regression analysis. Untransformed values were used because data for urine fluoride concentrations less than 2 mg/ml is normally distributed.

Linear regression analysis for the relationship of child IQ with urinary F. Children with TT gene about 44% of the sample. Children with CC and CT genes about 86% of the sample.

There were no statistically significant (p < 0.05) relationships, either for the TT variant (red triangle) or for the other variants (open circle) (CC & CT combined in this figure).

So, once again we see that if the appropriate data from these studies are used they confirm that there is no relationship of child IQ with measures of fluoride exposure at concentrations relevant to CWF (see also New study touted by anti-fluoridation campaigners actually indicates fluoridation is safe).

FAN’s “Research Director” makes simplistic mistakes

FAN plans to use studies like Ciu et al (2018) in their upcoming case against the US Environmental Protection Agency. Their aim is to attempt to establish cognitive effects as the main harms from CWF and then use studies like these to argue against CWF. Even though studies like this simply establish that there is no harm from fluoride concentration used for CWF. One hopes that the experts testifying for the EPA show how these studies are misrepresented by FAN.

FAN has provided a presentation by their “Research Director,” Chris Nerath, which they claim summarises their arguments. It’s a “pretty” PowerPoint presentation (FAN describes it as “powerful“) and may fool some people, but it just does not stand up to scientific scrutiny.

Quite apart for the misrepresentation of these scientific studies, and use of studies like Cui et al (2018) which are not relevant to CWF, Neurath simply makes basic scientific mistakes.

For example, in his slide 33, he claims that Cui et al (2018) showed a 10 point IQ loss for a 1 mg/L increase in urinary F. But that is simply not true – his mistake is that he ignored the fact that the linear relationship reported by Cui et al 2018) [IQ = 117.48 – 9.75*Log(UF)] is based on log values of urinary F where the value of the coefficient is -9.75. In other words, the 10 point loss is for an increase of urinary by a log value of 1 is equivalent to an increase from a concentration of 1 mg/L [Log(1) = 0] to a urinary F concentration of 10 mg/L ([log(10)=1].

Slide 33 from the presentation by Chris Neurath, FAN’s “Research Director” displaying an embarrassing mathematical mistake.

Let’s do the correct calculation for him. The Cui et al (2018) relationship shows an IQ value 117.48 for a urinary F concentration of 1 mg/L [Log(1)=0] and 114.55 for a urinary F concentration of 2 mg/L [Log(2)=0.301]. So the loss is only 2.9 IQ points.

Neurath thinks it sounds much better for his case to say a loss of 10 IQ points but all he has done is shown either he did not read Cui et al (2018) properly or does not understand a simple mathematical relationship.

However, I should stress Neurath’s argument is irrelevant to CWF, as well as being mathematically wrong because its analysis includes data from endemic fluorosis areas. In fact, there is no statistically significant relationship between child IQ and urinary fluoride either for the overall group or for the separate genetic groups considered.

“Safety threshold”

The graph in Neurath’s slide is adapted from Cui et al (2018) which made an attempt to determine a “safety threshold of urine fluoride levels for IQ
impairment” for the children with the TT gene. They defined this “safety threshold” as the urinary fluoride value corresponding to the mean IQ for the group. This seems arbitrary to me and the authors make no attempt to justify the definition.

They then divided the data into quintiles according to urinary fluoride values. Quintile 4 was the first quintile where the mean IQ value is below the mean IQ for the whole group so they assumed to mean log(UF) for that quintile to represent the “safety threshold.”

It all seems quite hairy to me – but I suppose the method produces a few data points which Neurath was able to plot on a graph and make to appear impressive. But look at the spread of the data (Neurath does not show this) in the graph below where the bars represent the spread of data for each quintile and the dotted line is the mean IQ value for the group. The spread is hardly surprising – the overall data is very scattered and only about 9 data points were used for each quintile.

I frankly think this method of determining a “safety threshold” is meaningless. We could do exactly the same with the data where urinary fluoride is less than 2 mg/L – much more relevant to CWF. This is the result – using quartiles of about 8 data points each.

Quite meaningless.

There are many other misrepresentations and mistakes in Chris Neurath’s Powerpoint presentation and I may return to some of them later. However, let’s hope the court recognises these and rejects FAN’s attempts.

Conclusion

Anti-fluoride activists continually use studies from areas of endemic fluorosis in their campaigns against CWF. However, when the actual data relevant to community water in these studies are considered they usually show no health effect.  There is no doubt that people living in endemic fluorosis areas suffer a range of health problems. But where these studies provide complete data they almost always could be used to support CWF.

Activists like FAN and their “Research Director” simply clutch on to any study they can finds which appears to show harmful effects of fluoride and ignore the fact that they are hardly ever relevant to the fluoride concentration used in CWF. They cherry-pick and ignore, or cover-up, any information not supporting their bias.

This approach is hardly scientific. It is not objective and never undertakes a critical review of the studies used. These activist display a thoughtless approach to scientific research when they opportunistically use scientific studies like this. Their approach is unthinking and it is hardly surprising that they make simple mathematical and statistical errors like the one described here and made by Paul Connett recently (see Anti-fluoridation propaganda now relies on only four studies. 4: Till et al (2020) and Author confirms anti-fluoridation activist misrepresentation of her work).

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Anti-fluoridation propaganda now relies on only four studies. 3: Riddell et al (2019)

Connett promotes Riddell et al (2019) as one of the only four studies one needs to read about fluoridation. But he misunderstands and misrepresents the findings of this study. Image credit: Fluoride Action Network – with my addition.

For earlier articles in this series see:

Part 1: Anti-fluoridation propaganda now relies on only four studies. 1: Bashash et al (2018).

Part 2: Anti-fluoridation propaganda now relies on only four studies. 2: Green et al (2019).

Paul Connett, director of the Fluoride Action Network (FAN), now claims “You only have to read four studies…” to come to the conclusion that community water fluoridation (CWF) is bad for your health. As I said in the first article in this series that is simply bad science. One should not ignore all the other relevant studies – and anyway, these four studies do not say what Connett claims.

In this article, I discuss the third study Connett recommends. It’s citation is:

Riddell, J. K., Malin, A., Flora, D., McCague, H., & Till, C. (2019). Association of water fluoride and urinary fluoride concentrations with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in Canadian Youth. Submitted to Environment International, 133(May), 105190.

Riddell et al (2019)

Connett switches his attention from IQ to ADHD saying:

 “The third came in 2019 and found a staggering 284% increase in the prevalence of ADHD among children in fluoridated communities in Canada compared to non-fluoridated ones.”

This is just so wrong – Connett has misinterpreted the findings in this paper and completely covered up the fact that the results were dependent on age. He may well be “staggered” but he has made a bad mistake.

The results reported in Riddell et al (2019) are a mixed bag and somewhat confused – see Table 4. They could not find any significant effect of urinary F (UF) on the diagnosis of ADHD – a result that disappointed them as they understood UF to be the most reliable measure of fluoride exposure. They did find a significant effect of CWF status on ADHD diagnosis (increase odds of diagnosis) but only for older children. There was also a significant effect for water-F.

Table 4: Results of logical regression of ADHD diagnosis against measures of fluoride exposure obtained by Riddell et al (2019). Red tringel indicates significant effect.

But Connett confused himself when attempting to interpret Riddell’s results for the effect of CWF – probably because he did not understand the difference between linear and logical regressions. Riddell et al (2019) did not use data for ADHD prevalence (as Connett implied) so could not produce a relationship of prevalence to CWF. Their data was binary – ADHD diagnosis vs no ADHD diagnosis – and they determined the chance of an ADHD diagnosis in fluoridated compared with unfluoridated areas. Here is how they describe that result:

“Specifically, at the 75th percentile of age (14 years old), the predicted odds of an ADHD diagnosis was 2.8 times greater among youth in a fluoridated region compared with youth in a non-fluoridated region (aOR=2.84, 95% CI: 1.40, 5.76, p < .01), whereas among youth at the 25th percentile of age (9 years old), the predicted odds of an ADHD diagnosis was similar across CWF status (aOR=0.91, 95% CI: 0.41, 1.99, p=.81; Table 4).”

So there was no “staggering 284% increase in the prevalence of ADHD among children in fluoridated communities .  .” Just that the chance, or predicted odds, of an ADHD diagnosis was 2.84 times greater for 14-year-old youth in fluoridated areas (but the same for 9-year-olds). The odds ratio of 2.84 is still relatively small (see Rules of thumb on magnitudes of effect sizes). And Connett ignored the fact this result was age-specific.

They also report results for the hyperactivity/inattention subscale score from the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ h/i). Again, no significant effect of UF but significant effects of CWF and water-F for older children. I won’t comment on this further because the data reported in the paper is confused – probably because of a mistake in the paper’s Table 4. I have emailed Julia Riddell about this problem but not yet had a reply.

Connett’s claim of a “284% increase in the prevalence of ADHD” due to fluoridation is simply wrong and demonstrated he did not understand the statistical analysis used in this paper. 

Tomorrow I will discuss the fourth study Connett now relies on – Till et al (2020) – see Anti-fluoridation propaganda now relies on only four studies. 4: Till et al (2020).

See also:

• ADHD and fluoride – wishful thinking supported by statistical manipulation?
• Statistical manipulation to get publishable results
• Anti-fluoridationists put faith in new “strong” studies to provide evidence missing in draft NTP review
• What are the recent fluoride-IQ studies really saying about community water fluoridation?

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Anti-fluoridation propaganda now relies on only four studies. 2: Green et al (2019)

Paul Connett is putting all his eggs in one basket. He says “you only have to read four studies” to find community after fluoridation harmful. Image credit: Fluoride Action Network newsletter.

For part 1 of this series see Anti-fluoridation propaganda now relies on only four studies. 1: Bashash et al (2018).

Paul Connett, director of the Fluoride Action Network (FAN), now claims “You only have to read four studies…” to come to the conclusion that community water fluoridation (CWF) is bad for your health. As I said in the first article in this series that is simply bad science. One should not ignore all the other relevant studies – and anyway, these four studies do not say what Connett claims.

In this article, I discuss the second study Connett recommends. It’s citation is:

Green, R., Lanphear, B., Hornung, R., Flora, D., Martinez-Mier, E. A., Neufeld, R., … Till, C. (2019). Association Between Maternal Fluoride Exposure During Pregnancy and IQ Scores in Offspring in Canada. JAMA Pediatrics, 1–9.

Green at al (2019)

According to Connett:

“The second* came in 2019 when a study published in JAMA Pediatrics essentially replicated the Mexico City finding in Canadian communities.”

Table 2 summarises the results obtained by Green et al (2019). Let’s compare them with the results found by Bashash et al (2018) as presented in the first article in this series – Anti-fluoridation propaganda now relies on only four studies. 1: Bashash et al (2018).

Table 2: Summary of results from Green et al (2019). Red triangles indicate a statistically significant relationship.

Note: See Table 1 for an explanation  of symbols and bars

No, Green et al (2019) did not “replicate” the findings of Bashash et al (2017) – although Connett may be using the word “essentially” to cover up his over-confidence in the claim.

Unlike Bashash et al (2017), Green et al (2019) did not find a statistically significant relationship of child IQ (FSIQ) with MUF. However, when they separated the children by sex the relationship was significantly negative for males (positive, but not statistically significant, for females). They also reported statistically significant relationships of IQ with maternal F intake estimated using an unvalidated subjective method, but not with drinking water F.

When the IQ (FSIQ) was separated into subsets no significant relationship was found for verbal IQ (VIQ) but there was a significant relationship with MUF of performance (PIQ) for boys. There was also a significant relationship of PIQ with drinking water F. So quite a mixed bag – and perhaps indicating that separating the data into different groups based on sex and using different cognitive measures can tweak out significant relationships. But it reminds me of the old saying that one can get the answer one wants if the data is tortured enough.

As for the statistically significant relationships reported by Green et al (2019) – none of them are at all “strong” as can be seen in these figures taken from the paper:

Antifluoride campaigners use of this paper in their propaganda relies on a very weak relationship which, according to Green (2018) explains only 4.7% of the variance in IQ, and required separation of children by sex to get statistical significance.

Polishing data and ignoring non-significant relationships

A concern I have about this study is the differences in the findings reported in the original MA thesis of Green (2018) and the final paper of Green et al (2019). For example, the thesis reported an adjusted association of FSIQ with fluoride intake (B = -3.82, 95% CI: -7.65 to 0.02, p = .05) which she describes as having “just missed significance” while the final paper reports this association as significant (B = -3.66, 95% CI: -7.16 to -0.15, p = 0.04). What was done to move this association into statistical significance?

I am also concerned that not all the non-significant associations recorded in the thesis are reported in the final paper. For example, Green (2018) reported that neither VIQ or PIQ was significantly associated with fluoride intake and VIQ was not significantly associated with water fluoride concentration and these facts were not reported in Green at al (2019). On the other hand, the significant relationship of PIQ with water fluoride concentration was reported in the final paper.

Selectively reporting results of statistical analyses like this gives a false impression of how important the results may be in practice. Sure, I can understand why authors will bias their presentation in this way but a good peer review should identify this bias and insist on the presentation of complete results.

Oh, and the overall comparison of child IQ from areas of residence of their mothers during pregnancy did not show any statistically significant difference due to fluoridation in Green et al (2019) – see Table 3.

Table 3: Comparison of cognitive scores obtained by Green et al (2019) for children of mothers living in fluoridated and unfluoridated areas during pregnancy

Connett is wrong to claim that the Green et al (2019) study “replicated” the Bashash et al (2017). It didn’t by a long shot. The study itself is also very weak, it has several faults and has been widely criticised in the scientific community.

Tomorrow I will discuss the third study Connett now relies on – Riddell et al (2019) – see Anti-fluoridation propaganda now relies on only four studies. 3: Riddell et al (2019).

See also:

• Experts complain to funding body about quality of fluoride-IQ research
• Biostatistical problems with the Canadian fluoride/IQ study
• More expert comments on the Canadian fluoride-IQ paper
• Anti-fluoridationists put faith in new “strong” studies to provide evidence missing in draft NTP review
• Fluoridation science and political advocacy – who is fooling who?
• Scientific integrity requires critical investigation – not blind acceptance
• Fluoridation – A new fight against scientific misinformation
• Politics of science – making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear
• If at first you don’t succeed . . . statistical manipulation might help

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Anti-fluoridation propaganda now relies on only four studies. 1: Bashash et al (2018)

This is the advice from the very top of the anti-fluoride movement – Paul Connett, director of the Fluoride Action Network (FAN). Don’t worry about reading  up on all the scientific information “You only have to read four studies…”

Of course – that is bad science. To ignore all the other information and rely just on four studies. But it is also bad science as those specific studies were chosen by Paul Connett because he believes they confirm his bias that community water fluoridation (CWF) is bad for you (they don’t actually). He consistently ignores studies which contradict his bais. But it is also bad science because these studies are weak and their results contradictory. Connett is simply into confirmation bias. He uses misrepresentation and mistaken interpretation of these studies to support his claims.

Connett acknowledges problems with high fluoride studies

Connett admits in his Fluoride Action Network (FAN) Bulletin from March 24, 2020:  “You only have to read four studies…” that “Many of the earlier studies were in places with elevated natural fluoride levels.” Yes – they are overwhelmingly from areas of endemic fluorosis, mainly in China, where health problems are very common and obvious. They have no relevance to community water fluoridation (CWF) – but this did not stop Connett, FAN and the whole anti-fluoride movement using them in their propaganda opposing a safe, effective and economic health policy known to reduce child tooth decay.

Then he goes on to claim:

“There is now very strong evidence that fluoride damages both the fetal and infant brain at the levels used in artificially fluoridated areas.”

“You only have to read four studies to realize that deliberately adding fluoride to drinking water unnecessarily endangers children’s brains.”

Let’s be scientific about it and have an objective and critical look at the specific studies Connett now relies on. I will discuss each of these four studies in separate articles. Here is my critique of the first one – Bashash et al (2017)

Bashash et al (2017)

The citation for this paper is:

Bashash, M., Thomas, D., Hu, H., Martinez-mier, E. A., Sanchez, B. N., Basu, N., … Hernández-avila, M. (2017). Prenatal Fluoride Exposure and Cognitive Outcomes in Children at 4 and 6 – 12 Years of Age in Mexico. Environmental Health Perspectives, 125(9).

Connett says:

“The first* came in Sept 2017 with a groundbreaking study from Mexico City. This study found a strong association between the amount of fluoride women were exposed to during pregnancy and lowered IQ in their offspring.”

Don’t take Connett’s word for this – read the paper and actually look at and consider the data.

Table 1 illustrates results from Bashash et al (2018) and from Thomas (2014) and Thomas et al (2013, 2014 & 2018): These all used the same or similar data from the ELEMENT database. The red triangles represent statistically significant relationships. All other relationships are not statistically significant.

Table 1: Summary of data from papers using the Mexican ELEMENT database. Red triangles indicate a statistically significant relationship.

Note: The coefficients were obtained from linear regression of full-scale child intelligence quotient (IQ), general cognitive index for the child (GCI) or mental development index of the child (MDI) against urinary fluoride for the child (UF) or prenatal urinary fluoride for the mother (MUF), adjusted in some cases using urine specific gravity (MUFsg) or urine creatinine concentrations (MUFcr). Bars represent the 95% confidence intervals of coefficients of the change of cognitive measure with an increase in fluoride measure. The red triangles represent statistically significant relationships. All other relationships are not statistically significant.

No relationship of child IQ with child urinary F:

Connett does not mention that there is no significant relationship of child IQ with fluoride exposure as measured by the child urinary F (UFsg) and he is also silent about the Thomas (2014) thesis which also showed no relationship of child MDI with child UF – although when Thomas (2014) separated data by sex she found a statistically significant positive relationship of IQ with UF for males.

Relationships with maternal prenatal urinary F – but very weak:

Yes, there are significant relationships of child IQ (6 – 12-year-olds) or child GCI (4-year-olds) with MUF – but contrary to Connett’s claim these relationships are far from “strong.” (Thomas did not find a significant relationship of MDI with  MUF for children of ages 1 to 3  but reported – in a conference poster paper Thomas et al 2018 – a statistically significant relationship for MUF corrected using creatinine concentrations – see  A conference paper on the maternal prenatal urinary fluoride/child IQ study has problems).

These figures from Bashash et al (2017) illustrate how scattered the data is:

While statistically significant the reported relationships are extremely weak – explaining only about 3.6% of the variance in IQ and 3.3% of the variance in GCI (see Maternal urinary fluoride/IQ study – an update). The large standard error of the regressions (9.8 for IQ and 12.9 for GCI) also indicate that the estimates of IQ change (-5.0) and GCI change (-6.3) for an increase of MUF of 1 mg/L  have no predictive value (see Maternal urinary fluoride/IQ study – an update).

Connett is very wrong to claim that “This study found a strong association . . .” It simply didn’t.

Tomorrow I will discuss the second study Connett now relies on – Green et al (2019) – see Anti-fluoridation propaganda now relies on only four studies. 2: Green et al (2019).

See also:

• Fluoride, pregnancy and the IQ of offspring
• Maternal urinary fluoride/IQ study – an update
• A conference paper on the maternal prenatal urinary fluoride/child IQ study has problems
• A more convincing take on prenatal maternal dietary effects on child IQ
• What are the recent fluoride-IQ studies really saying about community water fluoridation?
• What do these mother-child studies really say about fluoridation?

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