XPost: talk.environment, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.society.mental-health   
   XPost: talk.politics.guns, sac.politics   
   From: yourdime@outlook.com   
      
   THE TOWN of Seagraves sits on the high plains of West Texas, not far from   
   the New Mexico border. Nearby, water pumped from the Ogallala Aquifer   
   irrigates fields of peanuts and cotton.   
      
   Dissolved in that West Texas water are copious amounts of fluoride. The   
   tap water in Seagraves contains levels of the mineral that many experts   
   believe could have neurotoxic effects, lowering children’s IQs. The   
   science on that effect is unsettled, and most experts say better research   
   is needed. But nearly everyone agrees that at some point, high fluoride   
   levels ought to be a matter of greater concern — even if they don’t always   
   agree on what that point is.   
      
   Many cities add low levels of fluoride to drinking water in a bid to   
   prevent tooth decay, but the policy has long been controversial. Lost in   
   that debate are the roughly 3 million Americans whose water naturally   
   contains higher concentrations of fluoride — often at levels that even   
   some fluoridation advocates now acknowledge could have neurodevelopmental   
   effects.   
      
   People in Seagraves and similarly affected communities are unlikely to be   
   notified of those potential risks. Federal and state regulations require   
   water utilities to tell customers receiving high-fluoride water that it   
   could leave brown patches on children’s teeth, or even, at high levels,   
   cause a rare skeletal condition.   
      
   But, at least so far, the emerging science on neurological effects is not   
   reflected in regulations. Consumer notices rarely, if ever, mention the   
   possibility that fluoride could affect brain development. Nor do they   
   contain advisories for pregnant women, even as many scientists, including   
   some federal government researchers, now say there’s substantial evidence   
   that such elevated fluoride levels can be harmful to developing fetuses.   
      
   Perhaps nowhere is the issue more pervasive than Texas, where, according   
   to data supplied to Undark by the Texas Commission on Environmental   
   Quality, hundreds of communities have elevated fluoride levels, and   
   several dozen are in clear violation of EPA regulations.   
      
   Lost in that debate are the roughly 3 million Americans whose water   
   naturally contains higher concentrations of fluoride — often at levels   
   that could have neurodevelopmental effects.   
      
   As a result, children across Texas, and in hundreds more communities   
   around the United States, may routinely be exposed to potentially   
   neurotoxic levels of a common mineral, while their caregivers receive   
   little notification about those potential risks.   
      
   In a recent interview, Anne Nigra, an environmental health scientist and   
   drinking water expert at Columbia University, described the evidence of   
   harm as “robust” and “very compelling,” even at levels far below those   
   found in Seagraves.   
      
   “If I was speaking to someone from one of these communities, and it’s   
   someone who was pregnant, or thinking about becoming pregnant, or who had   
   a young child, I would certainly want them to have that information,” she   
   said.   
      
   IN MOST OF the United States, water sources contain little or no naturally   
   occurring fluoride. But in some places, fluoride leaches from rocks into   
   the groundwater. In West Texas, for example, the groundwater of the   
   Ogallala Aquifer soaks through layers of fluoride-rich volcanic ash,   
   hundreds of feet below the arid plains. By the time it comes out of the   
   ground, water there may have concentrations of fluoride upwards of 5   
   milligrams per liter — more than seven times higher than the levels   
   recommended for communities that add fluoride to their water.   
      
   Without specialized testing, consumers could never know it was there.   
   “Fluoride is odorless and tasteless and totally transparent,” said Joel   
   Podgorski, a geoscientist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic   
   Science and Technology. In a 2022 paper, he and a colleague mapped the   
   global distribution of natural fluoride hotspots. Around 180 million   
   people worldwide, they estimated, get water with natural fluoride levels   
   above what the World Health Organization recommends. Hotspots include   
   eastern Brazil, large areas of northwestern India, and pockets of North   
   America, mostly west of the Mississippi River.   
      
      
   There’s widespread scientific agreement that ingesting too much fluoride   
   can cause teeth to have a mottled appearance or become pitted, a condition   
   called dental fluorosis. At very high exposures, fluoride can also weaken   
   and deform bones.   
      
   The science is less clear-cut regarding effects on brain development.   
   Starting in the 1990s, some studies from China suggested that children   
   exposed to high levels of fluoride tended to have lower IQ scores. More   
   recent research, conducted in Canada and Mexico, has suggested that even   
   lower exposures — of the kind a person gets by drinking artificially   
   fluoridated water at 0.7 mg/L — could be harmful to young children and   
   developing fetuses. That evidence has prompted pitched debates among   
   scientists and policymakers about the consequences of artificial water   
   fluoridation. (The evidence of cognitive harm to adults is sparse.)   
      
   But many scientists, including some who say the evidence is inconclusive   
   at lower levels of fluoride exposure, say there’s stronger evidence of   
   harm as the concentration climbs.   
      
   “If I was speaking to someone from one of these communities, and it’s   
   someone who was pregnant, or thinking about becoming pregnant, or who had   
   a young child, I would certainly want them to have that information.”   
      
   Since 2016, for example, a team of scientists at the U.S. National   
   Toxicology Program has conducted a systematic review of fluoride research.   
   In a recent draft report, they conclude “with moderate confidence, that   
   higher fluoride exposure” — meaning levels at or above 1.5 mg/L — “is   
   consistently associated with lower IQ in children.”   
      
   “I think that there is pretty convincing evidence that at relatively high   
   doses, fluoride exposure can have some impact on children’s IQ,” said   
   David Eaton, a toxicologist and professor emeritus at the University of   
   Washington who spent years as an adviser to the National Toxicology   
   Program.   
      
   The public “should be aware of the science,” said Howard Hu, a physician   
   and epidemiologist at the University of Southern California who has   
   studied fluoride exposure. The evidence of some kind of effect, he said,   
   “is pretty darn strong.”   
      
   IT’S NOT CLEAR how much of that scientific conversation reaches residents   
   of towns like Seagraves, where fluoride levels consistently top the legal   
   limit of 4 mg/L.   
      
   The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sets those limits, and officials   
   there are aware of recent research on fluoride and brain development.   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)