A safe level of fluoride in water for pregnant women in order to prevent foetal IQ loss

A recent study by Grandjean et al. concluded that the pooling of results from three prospective cohorts,conducted in areas with wide ranges of overlapping fluoride exposure levels, to produce more than 1500 mother-child pairs, offers strong evidence of prenatal neurotoxicity from fluoride, and that these findings should inspire a revision of water fluoride recommendations aimed at protecting pregnant women and young children. The benchmark concentration lower confidence limit(BMCL)for the maternal urinary fluoride level in pregnancy whichresultsin the loss of 1 IQ point was found to be0.3 mg/L. This corresponds to a drinking water fluoride level of approximately 0.3 mg/L and suggests the currently recommended level of fluoride for community water fluoridation of 0.7 mg/L needs to be lowered to provide a safe level of fluoride in water for pregnant women in order to prevent foetal IQ loss.