Despite US government climb down, lower fluoride levels will not protect kids from spotted teeth. Four in ten American kids have spotted or splotchy teeth due to excessive fluoride, says the US health watchdog and fervent promoter of fluoridation, the Center for Disease Control (‘CDC’). On 7th January 2011 it proposed nearly halving the amount fluoride added to US drinking water, mirroring the response of the Irish government in 2007 to similar risks to children in fluoridated Ireland(1). “This is too little and too late for tens of thousands of US and Irish kids” said Robert Pocock, Stop Fluoridation campaigner for Voice of Irish Concern for the Environment. “We rejected the Irish government’s move in 2007 by pointing to the UK’s York Review (2000). This systematic review found that the lowered fluoride concentration (0.7ppm) still results in 42% of people being permanently damaged by dental fluorosis. Clearly, there is so much fluoride already in the diet that the only way to protect children and above all babies, is to stop adding fluoride to water or the food-chain, period.”Later this month, the UK’s judicial review of the local Health Authority’s ill-informed decision to add fluoride to the drinking water of 200,000 unwilling residents of Southampton and environs, is expected to expose not only the blatant flaws in the public consultation process but the gross negligence of health officials in not first assessing current actual fluoride intake levels of residents (both children and adults) in the target area.Stephen Peckham, Chairman of Hampshire Against Fluoridation, said “We have consistently argued that water fluoridation contributes to over-ingestion of fluoride. There are numerous studies since the mid-1990s raising concerns about excess levels but the SHA has refused to take notice of this evidence. Perhaps now they will take a look at this issue and properly examine evidence submitted to them during the consultation.” He went on to say “While the SHA continues to insist that 1ppm of fluoride in drinking water is a so-called optimal level, fluoridation itself is increasingly seen as an outdated practice.” (2)The same UK dietary evidence that 20% of adults are exposed to unsafe levels of fluoride, is also exercising scientists in Europe. At the public hearing on fluoridation chemicals in Brussels in September 2010, members of the Scientific Committee on Environmental and Health Risks (SCHER) declared their serious concern at the health implications of much higher fluoride levels today. If the evidence of people living in the largely un-fluoridated UK is applied to Europe, then tens of millions of EU citizens are clearly also at risk from excessive fluoride. (3)Unsafe intake in adults is linked to a wide variety of adverse health effects including impaired thyroid, kidney and pineal function, bone cancer as well as other bone and joint disorders due to lifetime accumulation. In children, besides visible damage to teeth, adverse effects include IQ and brain damage. In Europe only Ireland and minor parts of the UK permit fluoridation chemicals to be added to drinking water, the practice having been rejected as crude, unsafe and ineffective by the rest of the EU.ENDS INFO on +353 86 811 3071References:(1) http://www.cdc.gov/fluoridation/fact_sheets/cwf_qa.htm(2) http://hampshireagainstfluoridation.blogspot.com/(3) http://www.fluorideresearch.org/434/files/FJ2010_v43_n4_p223-231.pdf(4) http://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/consultations/public_consultations/scher_cons_05_en.htm