The Dread of Tainted Drinking Water is Centuries Old

But you'd never know that by reading official reports of the growing fluoride concern.

If we put Socrates’ poisoning aside (they say it was hemlock in his glass of water), we humans have had a centuries-old dread of tainted drinking water. 

The ancients had dysentery, cholera, and typhoid to worry about. 

Despite their remarkable Aqueducts, the Romans still suffered from waterborne pathogens they knew little about. 

Of course, there was known science of the Middle Ages that consisted of the miasma (bad air) theory.  Just think of all those priests going about with scented herbs in their Pinocchio-style headgear.  

Humanity reached a monumental turning point in the early 1800s when Dr. John Snow isolated the exact contaminated well in Soho, London that was spreading cholera.  Germ theory got its big start, followed fast behind by institutionalized public health, hygiene, and new sanitation systems. 

But like some cruel joke,  you could say that in the last 100+ years, people are as hypervigilant about drinking water or more so. Reasons include post-industrial brownfields, environmental pollutants, forever chemicals, corroding water and sewer systems, and our love affair with green lawns. Here are just a few of the high-profile and deadly drinking water contamination events: 

Camp LeJeun NC, 1950s – 1980s – cancer-causing industrial chemical; Woburn, MA 1969 – industrial chemical,  Milwaukee – cryptosporidiosis  (Crypto) – poop in drinking water(1993), Flint MI 2014-ongoing; many cities with ongoing lead contamination, whole states, like Iowa and Illinois, farmland in central CA – fertilizers & pesticides. 

2025     

Dread of contaminated drinking water?  In recent reports, it has been estimated that 100,000 cancer deaths a year are caused by tainted drinking water. 

So, when I saw the NYT story Study Links High Fluoride Exposure to Lower I.Q. in Children referring to a just-published JAMA Pediatrics article, a “ systematic review and meta-analysis of 74 cross-sectional and prospective cohort studies found significant inverse associations between fluoride exposure and children’s IQ scores”.

The NYT language, excerpted here:

But there has been growing controversy among scientists about whether fluoride may be linked to lower I.Q. scores in children. A comprehensive federal analysis of scores of previous studies, published this week in JAMA Pediatrics, has added to those concerns. It found a significant inverse relationship between exposure levels and cognitive function in children.

I had to go back to the actual language used by the US Health and Human Services (HHS)National Toxicology Program.  

After they recount the successes of Fluoride in the drinking water -  reducing dental cavities and improving general oral health of adults and children, they refer to concerns. 

Here is what their summation of the NTP’s systematic review of studies. 

____________________________

Findings

The NTP monograph concluded, with moderate confidence, that higher levels of fluoride exposure, such as drinking water containing more than 1.5 milligrams of fluoride per liter, are associated with lower IQ in children. The NTP review was designed to evaluate total fluoride exposure from all sources and was not designed to evaluate the health effects of fluoridated drinking water alone. It is important to note that there were insufficient data to determine if the low fluoride level of 0.7 mg/L currently recommended for U.S. community water supplies has a negative effect on children’s IQ. The NTP found no evidence that fluoride exposure had adverse effects on adult cognition.

The NTP uses 4 confidence levels - high, moderate, low, or very low - to characterize the strength of scientific evidence that associates a particular health outcome with an exposure. After evaluating studies published through October 2023, the NTP Monograph concluded there is moderate confidence in the scientific evidence that showed an association between higher levels of fluoride and lower IQ in children.

The determination about lower IQs in children was based primarily on epidemiology studies in non-U.S. countries such as Canada, China, India, Iran, Pakistan, and Mexico where some pregnant women, infants, and children received total fluoride exposure amounts higher than 1.5 mg fluoride/L of drinking water. The U.S. Public Health Service currently recommends 0.7 mg/L, and the World Health Organization has set a safe limit for fluoride in drinking water of 1.5 mg/L.

________________

I need more time to look into the communication trail here, including RF Kennedy’s statements before the election, but at the very least everything I’ve seen communicated thus far by officials – government, academics, is beyond the science and health literacy of at least 70% of US adults. 

Given human history's real and dread of tainted drinking water, this verbiage, this messaging is itself tainted and inaccessible. 

Here are some of the fundamental concepts that officials will have to concertedly and linguistically work on if they don’t want to either contribute to the waves of fear among the population right now and lose even more credibility. 

Concepts that experts must communicate early and often: 

• Known science/changing science
• Scientific evidence
• Dose-response