And Now Here's Leana Wen Asking Us All To Just Hear RFK Jr. Out About Fluoride
We will pass, thank you.
Washington Post health columnist Dr. Leana Wen is at it again. No, she’s not weirdly downplaying another pandemic … she’s agreeing with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on fluoride.
Yes, Dr. Wen, whom you may also remember from the ten seconds she was president of Planned Parenthood, has got herself a bad case of the Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues, which has tragically manifested in a Washington Post article titled “RFK Jr.’s views on fluoride aren’t as crazy as you might think.”
Spoiler alert: They are exactly that crazy.
For the 80 millionth time, the dose makes the poison. In order to get fluoride toxicity, one would need to drink, in one sitting, 5 liters of water for every kilogram of their weight. So, someone who weighs 140 pounds (63 kgs) would have to drink 315 liters of water, or 83 gallons in one sitting — and would definitely die from water toxicity (and possibly many other things) before they got to that point.
In order to make her point, Wen cites a few studies she says suggest that drinking fluoridated water while pregnant “might interfere with brain development.”
But there are problems with those studies.
A JAMA Pediatrics study concluded that Canadian women who drank fluoridated water during pregnancy had children with lower IQ scores at ages 3 to 4 years old. There was no statistically significant effect on girls, but IQ scores of boys born to women with higher fluoride consumption were nearly 4.5 points lower.
That would be some really damning evidence, save for the fact that the women who participated in this study were drinking water with a higher-than-optimal fluoride level. The study itself notes that “it is unclear whether fluoride exposure during pregnancy is associated with cognitive deficits in a population receiving optimally fluoridated water.”
The next Canadian study she cites had an entirely different result — they found no effect on intelligence, but found some “poorer inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility,” but this time in girls rather than boys.
That study actually took place in Calgary in Alberta which decided to defluoridate its water supply in 2011. The city has since decided that they will refluoridate the water next year. Why?
CTV News reported:
James A. Dickinson, a professor of medicine at the University of Calgary, said the rates of dental treatments under anesthesia have risen steadily in Calgary since the loss of fluoridation.
“We are concerned about avoidable and potentially life-threatening disease, pain, suffering, misery and expense experienced especially by very young children and their families due to dental decay,” Dickinson said in an emailed statement.
“In just eight years after fluoridation ended in 2011, the need for intravenous antibiotic therapy by children to avoid death by infection rose 700 per cent at the Alberta Children’s Hospital.”
According to Dickinson, a recent University of Alberta study shows that for children under five years old, the rate of dental treatments under anesthesia doubled from 22 per 100,000 in 2010-11 to 45 per 100,000 in 2018-19.
For kids aged six to 11, the rates rose from 14 per 100,000 to 19 per 100,000.
Sounds like fun!
What else you got, Wen?
Three studies from Mexico found a link between fluoride intake during pregnancy and a significant drop in IQ, attention-deficit/hyperactivity symptoms and cognitive development problems.
These studies did not conclude that what is considered the optimal level of fluoride led to these things, they concluded that higher doses of fluoride led to them. Additionally, the last Mexican study cited found, like the first one and unlike the second, that only boys were affected. I’m sorry, how is it possible that these studies are reliable if you’ve got one saying “Oh, it only affected girls and not boys” and others saying “Oh, it only affected boys and not girls”? I’m not a scientist, but that seems a little sus.
Shall we try again?
Earlier this year, a U.S. study published in JAMA Network Open found that prenatal fluoride exposure was associated with children developing neurobehavioral problems. Researchers followed 229 women in the Los Angeles area from pregnancy through about the third year of their child’s life and linked higher amounts of fluoride by the expectant mothers to nearly double the odds of the child having problems such as anxiety and emotional instability.
In this study, the researchers compared levels of fluoride found in the urine of these women and then tracked their children to compare those with low levels to those with high levels. There were no fluoride-free participants, no tap-water-free participants — they were only comparing low levels of fluoride in the urine to higher levels of fluoride in the urine. Again, we already know that higher levels are bad. I fully concede that no one should be eating an entire tube of toothpaste, especially if pregnant.
But here is my favorite quote from that study:
Most participants (192 participants) reported fasting in the third trimester for at least 8 hours.
I’m sorry, what? They were fasting? Like, as in not eating? The thing that you are supposed to be doing “for two” at that time?
Gee, could that have had some impact on a child’s cognitive abilities? I think it might! The researchers also didn’t actually take down any data on how much tap water these women were even drinking or what they were eating (aside from the part where they were not eating at all) — because there are also foods that have fluoride in them. Spinach, potatoes, lots of other fruits and vegetables, shellfish (which pregnant women aren’t supposed to have anyway, but still). There’s also fluoride in black and green tea — and, ironically, given the whole “teeth” thing, coffee and wine.
I find it highly doubtful that Leana Wen legitimately believes, as RFK Jr. does, that we should defluoridate the water supply. She has a long history of trying to adjust her views to fit what she believes is popular opinion, like the time she tried to convince Planned Parenthood to stop pushing for abortion rights (in 2018-2019) and instead direct their energy to “general” health, including suggesting they put up webpages about asthma and the common cold — conditions rarely treated at family planning clinics. Or back when she suggested that we should all just accept superspreader events as “the new normal.”
She prides herself on being “pragmatic” and “meeting people where they are,” but I just don’t know that we should be doing that when “where they are” is alone, in a dark alley, after midnight, holding a knife.
Now, even if I do not think these studies are terrifically convincing, I see absolutely no problem in exercising extra caution and perhaps suggesting that pregnant women be careful about consuming excessive amounts of fluoride (distilled water, which does not contain fluoride, is cheap to buy and free to make if one is so inclined). I also have no problem with people conducting further studies on this or anything else — I’m always happy to be proven wrong.
However! Until there are studies that actually prove that water fluoridation at the level that exists in the United States is toxic to us all, everyone else still needs it for tooth decay reasons. This is especially important for the kids out there whose parents cannot afford to get them proper dental care, and who certainly cannot afford general anesthesia (which is not always covered by insurance) if the kid gets an infection.
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
Stephen King
@StephenKing
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I see there's a rumor going around that I called the Musk-man Trump's new first lady. I didn't, but only because I didn't think of it. There's also a rumor going around that Muskie kicked me off Twitter. Yet here I am.
6:47 AM · Nov 13, 2024
Thanks Robyn--I saw her headline in the Post and my immediate reaction was "oh, so the Post is already following its marching orders". Complete madness.
The flouride shit was at least novel during the John Birch Society days. Now the American people, in their infinite wisdom, but the wackjobs and dumbasses in charge.