Fluoride and Other Chemical Risks
New research finds exposure to fluoride in drinking water and several other common chemicals in early life diminishes brain function in children. Study lead author, Philippe Grandjean, tells host Steve Curwood fluoride, flame retardants, pesticides and and fuel additives may be affecting children's intelligence.
Transcript
CURWOOD: It's Living on Earth, I'm Steve Curwood. Lead. Mercury. Arsenic. PCBs. Toluene. These are common chemicals that researchers know can damage developing brains. Now a new study in the journal Lancet Neurology evaluates earlier research involving six different but also widely used chemicals that seem to affect brain function.
Perhaps most startling, this review raises more questions about fluoride in drinking water, suggesting that despite its dental benefits, fluoride could permanently impair cognitive development in children. The additional chemicals documented as neurotoxins in this article include PERC, which is used as dry cleaning fluid, manganese, used as a gasoline additive, certain fire retardants, and the insecticides Dursban and DDT. Dr. Philippe Grandjean of the Harvard School of Public Health, was the lead author.
GRANDJEAN: We looked at every single industrial chemical that we could find information on, and our conclusion is that we’re now up to 12 industrial chemicals where we have evidence that they can damage the human brain development.
CURWOOD: When you say ‘damage human brain development,’ what do you mean?
GRANDJEAN: Well, what we have seen with these chemicals with that the effects may be cognitive, meaning that they may relate to higher brain functions, they may relate to motor control, they may relate to a behavior. There is evidence that they can also be related to depression, so we’re talking about a range of different aspects of brain function, if a child is exposed to the chemical during early life or if the exposure happens in the mother’s womb, then we can see later on that the child does not have optimal brain functioning.
CURWOOD: In the United States, how many children do you estimate are exposed to these chemicals at meaningful levels?
GRANDJEAN: We’re all exposed to levels that can actually interfere with brain development in humans. Of course, it’s a matter of the dose, how much we are exposed, because we get pesticide residues from the fruits and vegetables unless they’re organic, we get mercury even if we avoid tuna and other large fish, we’re still exposed to a little bit of mercury. And my message is let’s minimize those exposures, we know how to do it. Let’s do the best we can as soon as possible, and then do the systematic testing of industrial chemicals so that we can figure out which additional ones to control.
