Fluoride - A Developmental Neurotoxin
One of the many reasons for removing Fluoride from your drinking water is the addition of Fluoride to the list of neurotoxins that can affect the developing brain. It is one of the industrial chemicals that have been linked to a rise in neurodevelopmental disabilities including ADHD in children. The following article from the Lancet Medical Journal makes for interesting reading.
Neurodevelopmental disabilities, including autism, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, dyslexia, and other cognitive impairments, affect millions of children worldwide, and some diagnoses seem to be increasing in frequency.
Neurodevelopmental disabilities, including autism, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, dyslexia, and other cognitive impairments, affect millions of children worldwide, and some diagnoses seem to be increasing in frequency.
Industrial chemicals that injure the developing brain are among the known causes for this rise in prevalence. In 2006, we did a systematic review and identified five industrial chemicals as developmental neurotoxicants: lead, methylmercury, polychlorinated biphenyls, arsenic, and toluene. Since 2006, epidemiological studies have documented six additional developmental neurotoxicants—manganese, fluoride, chlorpyrifos, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, tetrachloroethylene, and the polybrominated diphenyl ethers.
We postulate that even more neurotoxicants remain undiscovered. To control the pandemic of developmental neurotoxicity, we propose a global prevention strategy. Untested chemicals should not be presumed to be safe to brain development, and chemicals in existing use and all new chemicals must therefore be tested for developmental neurotoxicity. To coordinate these efforts and to accelerate translation of science into prevention, we propose the urgent formation of a new international clearinghouse.
a Department of Environmental Medicine, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark
b Department of Environmental Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
c Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA
Correspondence to: Dr Philippe Grandjean, Environmental and Occupational Medicine and Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health, 401 Park Drive E-110, Boston, MA 02215, USA
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