Story by The Sydney Morning Herald.
Read The Sydney Morning Herald’s full story here
AUSTRALIAN HEALTH authorities are reviewing the case for fluoride in drinking water amid concerns scientific evidence supporting the benefits and risks to people’s health may have shifted.
While most Australians have been regularly consuming low amounts of fluoride since it was added to drinking water in the 1960s and 1970s to prevent tooth decay, several controversial studies in recent years have suggested the mineral may be linked to lower intelligence in children and thyroid problems that can cause weight gain, fatigue and depression.
On Tuesday, the National Health and Medical Research Council revealed that a 2012 study linking very high levels of fluoride to low IQ among some Chinese children prompted it to commission a review of the health effects of the celebrated public health intervention.
A spokesperson for the NHMRC said while the Chinese study increased concern about the safety of fluoride and potential neurotoxicity for children, it was conducted in a country with very different naturally occurring levels of fluoride that are not seen in Australia, meaning “care needs to be exercised in interpreting the results”.
Furthermore, the study published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives identified drinking water with fluoride concentrations up to 11.5 mg/L in China. In Australia, the recommended level is 0.6-1.1 mg/L.
Still wondering why Lismore has recently put fluoride in our water at a time it is being removed from the water in many other countries.