A couple weeks ago I came across a link someone posted on FB about a new study in The Lancet Neurology suggesting that fluoride might be a neurotixicant that inhibits normal brain development in children. I was, of course, very skeptical, but since The Lancet is a well-established and generally highly regarded journal I thought Id do some digging (and yes, before you jump in, Im aware that The Lancet was also the source of the 1998 autism/vaccine nonsense). Unfortunately I couldnt read the whole article myself, as its a paid site, but heres a link to the summary: thelancet/journals/laneur/article/PIIS1474-4422(13)70278-3/abstract I searched for some reviews of the study by people who were able to read it, and wanted to share two articles, the first from The Raw Story: rawstory/rs/2014/02/14/disputed-study-links-fluoride-other-chemicals-to-erosion-of-child-iqs/ I think the last two paragraphs are key to understanding why this Lancet piece is not a very good basis for decision-making: In comments prepared by the Science Media Centre, epidemiologist Jean Golding of the University of Bristol accused the pair of issuing scare statements. To implicate high fluoride, which they quote as one of the new chemicals… they quote only one paper; this only compares the mean IQs of children in villages with different levels of fluoride, with no allowance made for any other differences, and no actual measurement of fluoride in individual children and comparison with their IQs. This is not good evidence. Finally, for a more detailed explanation of why the study is no good, check this one out: blog.americanchemistry/2014/02/authors-ignore-fundamental-principles-of-science-in-lancet-paper-opt-for-alarmism/
Posted on: Mon, 30 Jun 2014 01:07:34 +0000
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