They do. The Journals' (I forgot to preface with "prestigious and venerable") Editor-in Chief sends the paper to a couple of researcher friends. They glance over the paper and send it back with a Post-It note, "Looks good to me."
There are 3 million to 5 million peer-reviewed articles across all fields published every year. Each study has multiple sources of random and systematic error. Wrong conclusions, backed by data, are published. The System elevates results and researchers that support its power, while ignoring the others. Power is continually elevated, expanded, and secured - not truth.
A conclusion made on behalf of a special interest in search of the narrative that fits. Vaccine makers have used it for decades. Here is what I am sure of.
"Within hours it was circulating as proof that the science is settled .."
NO, it is not. Merely a small study published as a BRIEF REPORT. But within hours, the "truth tellers" have crawled out to agitate their followers with misinterpretations and overgeneralizations - because that's how they remain relevant and get paid.
Great analysis. As the Research Director for the Fluoride Action Network I had been working on my own analysis of this paper before seeing yours, but my conclusion is the same: this study was incapable of detecting neurotoxicity from prenatal and early childhood fluoride exposure, which is exactly the life stage that almost all the 70+ studies of fluoride (F) and IQ have consistently found associated with reduced IQ.
Here are the problems I identified with the study, some of which are identical to what you identify:
There are three main reasons why this study likely could not have been able to detect an effect of F on IQ:
1.) The IQ tests were given to high school students in 1956 when they were 16 years old, so they would have been born in 1940. That is 5 years before the first artificial fluoridation trial in the US had even begun, so not a single person in this dataset had prenatal exposure from fluoridated water, or childhood exposure to fluoridated water from birth to past age 5 years. Almost all prior studies finding neurotoxicity found it from prenatal or early childhood F exposure. By age 5+ fluoride may have little effect on IQ. This study is incapable of assessing whether F is a developmental neurotoxicant.
2.) It measured IQ at an older age (16 y or even older) when it becomes difficult to detect a neurotoxic effect that occurred in utero or early infancy for several reasons even if there had been early life F exposure.
3.) It had only group-level fluoridation exposure information, and not even at a small local level but only at the level of a county in some cases and a school district in other cases. A 1969 US Public Health Service report shows that only about 3% of the population of Wisconsin had drinking water with naturally elevated water F above 0.7 mg/L. Combine that with the fact that there was no artificial fluoridation anywhere in the US for the first 5 years of life for this cohort and we can say that this study is incapable of detecting developmental neurotoxicity from either artificial or naturally occurring F in drinking water.
Limitations 2) and 3) produce greater random measurement error, with the age 16y IQ tests producing greater random (non-differential) error in the IQ score outcome measure and the group-level F exposure producing random error in the F status exposure measure. Combine both of these random errors and there is likely too much "noise" to detect a "signal" from an effect of F on IQ.
Egocentric, biased products of self indulgent researchers like "Wsrren et, al." need to contemplate that in their efforts to hold up their flawed academic work, they sre actually contributing to the disintegration of their liveihood. 🤔🙄🤦♀️ The more they scramble to prop up rubbish science, instead of owning their work and admitting its flaws, committing to improving future work. The faster they tear down the whole system. People are fast returning to a dark ages mentality, where science is disbelieved, because it is "science". 😐 which is not good for anyone. Especiallyvwhen the only slternative on offer is complete acceptance of AI. Since critical thought is becoming "old fashioned".😉
Agree. It is a GIGO paper: garbage in-garbage out.
1- Kudos on "Children who dropped out before graduation are not in this dataset. They never were. Children with lower cognitive function — who are precisely the population most likely to show neurotoxicant effects, as the international fluoride literature consistently finds — are systematically excluded." I overlooked that, but isn't it telling? They did the same thing with general health in the initial "fluoride trials" that checked urine and health- they excluded any child who had had any illness in the previous 2 weeks.
2- The study authors spot sampled counties and assumed that if any well at or above .7 ppm fluoride, then all the children in that county had adequate fluoride. How ridiculous!
3- Lies: Authors claimed that
a) the NTP study was on ADOLESCENT IQ, but the NTP focused on IQ from age 3 to 11, pre- adolescence, the most critical period for brain development
b) they wrote the studies used in the NTP systematic review and meta-analysis were specific to "extremely high dosages of fluoride—far exceeding levels relevant to CWF policy" - again not true. The highest quality studies were done on large cohorts living in optimally fluoridated Canadian communities where the water concentration was about 0.6 ppm (below the target of 0.7 ppm), yet at least 10% of the pregnant women tested had fluoride concentrations in their urine consistent with 1.5 ppm (mg/L) or higher - and it was these women whose children had the lower IQs.
It's very simple, really - the more water you drink at any fluoride concentration, the higher your dose and if you consume fluoride from other sources, that affects you, too, which is why individual testing is so important and why the fluoridation cartel doesn't do it.
I understand that the assumption for adequate" prenatal and early childhood calcium fluoride exposure for this cohort born in 1940, ten years before fluoridation (sodium fluoride and FSA) was rolled out, was a single well reading from a 2020 county survey.
Moreover, they claim the NTP focus was on ADOLESCENT IQ - it was not. It was on early childhood IQ, mostly ages 3-6, but one two studies in the NTP meta-analysis and systematic review looked at 11 year olds. The 10% of pregnant women with urine fluoride levels at 1.5 mg/L or higher (many living in "optimally" fluoridated Canadian communities) had offspring with significantly lower IQs on a dose-response trendline. Drinking a swallow more than 2 liters of water a day could result in that 1.5 reading. That is not excessive.
Additionally, JR Warren has no qualifications for this study. From someone who knows:
"John Robert Warren is a PhD in sociology (1999). Not an MD, not a DDS, not a toxicologist, not a Biochemist, not an epidemiologist.
"The only qualification admissible about anyone to address the problem of fluoridation is anyone who has done the research and understands the implications of exposure to the Fluorine element on human biochemistry by ingestion or injection as we do: no amount of qualifying letters after ones name or level of education, can qualify one to speak intelligently about the problem if fluoridation - oops, I forget, the proponents don't see fluoridation as a problem they only see us as the problem🤣sorry about that...
"Allowing diverting the conversation to teeth and oral health is a trap to avoid
"The proponents are completely missing the point and are a testament to willful ignorance."
I got absolutely skewered by someone when I brought up
"A scientist confirming his own prior finding, using the same dataset, at the same institution"
This isn't accurate. Warren et al 2026 uses the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. Warren et al 2025 uses the Highschool and Beyond dataset. It's different data.
Thanks yet again for exposing how (some - much - most?) of "modern science" works!
It's clearly not science. So I appreciate the quotes.
Jimmy says ... 😂 🤣
Thank you
One would think the PNAS would actually review these articles with some level of expertise before posting them.
They do. The Journals' (I forgot to preface with "prestigious and venerable") Editor-in Chief sends the paper to a couple of researcher friends. They glance over the paper and send it back with a Post-It note, "Looks good to me."
🤣🤣🤣
There are 3 million to 5 million peer-reviewed articles across all fields published every year. Each study has multiple sources of random and systematic error. Wrong conclusions, backed by data, are published. The System elevates results and researchers that support its power, while ignoring the others. Power is continually elevated, expanded, and secured - not truth.
A conclusion made on behalf of a special interest in search of the narrative that fits. Vaccine makers have used it for decades. Here is what I am sure of.
YOU CAN NEVER FIND WHAT YOU ARE NOT LOOKING FOR.
Political and/or profit agenda.
Like your 5 Stinking Fish retraction! : )
"Within hours it was circulating as proof that the science is settled .."
NO, it is not. Merely a small study published as a BRIEF REPORT. But within hours, the "truth tellers" have crawled out to agitate their followers with misinterpretations and overgeneralizations - because that's how they remain relevant and get paid.
It’s been playing on local news all over the country. I saw it this morning. “New Study shows that fluoride has no effect on children’s health or IQ”
James, thank you again for another deep analysis. There is so much junk science out there. Keep doing what you are doing!
Great analysis. As the Research Director for the Fluoride Action Network I had been working on my own analysis of this paper before seeing yours, but my conclusion is the same: this study was incapable of detecting neurotoxicity from prenatal and early childhood fluoride exposure, which is exactly the life stage that almost all the 70+ studies of fluoride (F) and IQ have consistently found associated with reduced IQ.
Here are the problems I identified with the study, some of which are identical to what you identify:
There are three main reasons why this study likely could not have been able to detect an effect of F on IQ:
1.) The IQ tests were given to high school students in 1956 when they were 16 years old, so they would have been born in 1940. That is 5 years before the first artificial fluoridation trial in the US had even begun, so not a single person in this dataset had prenatal exposure from fluoridated water, or childhood exposure to fluoridated water from birth to past age 5 years. Almost all prior studies finding neurotoxicity found it from prenatal or early childhood F exposure. By age 5+ fluoride may have little effect on IQ. This study is incapable of assessing whether F is a developmental neurotoxicant.
2.) It measured IQ at an older age (16 y or even older) when it becomes difficult to detect a neurotoxic effect that occurred in utero or early infancy for several reasons even if there had been early life F exposure.
3.) It had only group-level fluoridation exposure information, and not even at a small local level but only at the level of a county in some cases and a school district in other cases. A 1969 US Public Health Service report shows that only about 3% of the population of Wisconsin had drinking water with naturally elevated water F above 0.7 mg/L. Combine that with the fact that there was no artificial fluoridation anywhere in the US for the first 5 years of life for this cohort and we can say that this study is incapable of detecting developmental neurotoxicity from either artificial or naturally occurring F in drinking water.
Limitations 2) and 3) produce greater random measurement error, with the age 16y IQ tests producing greater random (non-differential) error in the IQ score outcome measure and the group-level F exposure producing random error in the F status exposure measure. Combine both of these random errors and there is likely too much "noise" to detect a "signal" from an effect of F on IQ.
👏👏👏👏👏👏👏💯. Only 5 stinking fish awarded?
Egocentric, biased products of self indulgent researchers like "Wsrren et, al." need to contemplate that in their efforts to hold up their flawed academic work, they sre actually contributing to the disintegration of their liveihood. 🤔🙄🤦♀️ The more they scramble to prop up rubbish science, instead of owning their work and admitting its flaws, committing to improving future work. The faster they tear down the whole system. People are fast returning to a dark ages mentality, where science is disbelieved, because it is "science". 😐 which is not good for anyone. Especiallyvwhen the only slternative on offer is complete acceptance of AI. Since critical thought is becoming "old fashioned".😉
It's fun watching you lose your mind.
Agree. It is a GIGO paper: garbage in-garbage out.
1- Kudos on "Children who dropped out before graduation are not in this dataset. They never were. Children with lower cognitive function — who are precisely the population most likely to show neurotoxicant effects, as the international fluoride literature consistently finds — are systematically excluded." I overlooked that, but isn't it telling? They did the same thing with general health in the initial "fluoride trials" that checked urine and health- they excluded any child who had had any illness in the previous 2 weeks.
2- The study authors spot sampled counties and assumed that if any well at or above .7 ppm fluoride, then all the children in that county had adequate fluoride. How ridiculous!
3- Lies: Authors claimed that
a) the NTP study was on ADOLESCENT IQ, but the NTP focused on IQ from age 3 to 11, pre- adolescence, the most critical period for brain development
b) they wrote the studies used in the NTP systematic review and meta-analysis were specific to "extremely high dosages of fluoride—far exceeding levels relevant to CWF policy" - again not true. The highest quality studies were done on large cohorts living in optimally fluoridated Canadian communities where the water concentration was about 0.6 ppm (below the target of 0.7 ppm), yet at least 10% of the pregnant women tested had fluoride concentrations in their urine consistent with 1.5 ppm (mg/L) or higher - and it was these women whose children had the lower IQs.
It's very simple, really - the more water you drink at any fluoride concentration, the higher your dose and if you consume fluoride from other sources, that affects you, too, which is why individual testing is so important and why the fluoridation cartel doesn't do it.
I understand that the assumption for adequate" prenatal and early childhood calcium fluoride exposure for this cohort born in 1940, ten years before fluoridation (sodium fluoride and FSA) was rolled out, was a single well reading from a 2020 county survey.
Moreover, they claim the NTP focus was on ADOLESCENT IQ - it was not. It was on early childhood IQ, mostly ages 3-6, but one two studies in the NTP meta-analysis and systematic review looked at 11 year olds. The 10% of pregnant women with urine fluoride levels at 1.5 mg/L or higher (many living in "optimally" fluoridated Canadian communities) had offspring with significantly lower IQs on a dose-response trendline. Drinking a swallow more than 2 liters of water a day could result in that 1.5 reading. That is not excessive.
Additionally, JR Warren has no qualifications for this study. From someone who knows:
"John Robert Warren is a PhD in sociology (1999). Not an MD, not a DDS, not a toxicologist, not a Biochemist, not an epidemiologist.
"The only qualification admissible about anyone to address the problem of fluoridation is anyone who has done the research and understands the implications of exposure to the Fluorine element on human biochemistry by ingestion or injection as we do: no amount of qualifying letters after ones name or level of education, can qualify one to speak intelligently about the problem if fluoridation - oops, I forget, the proponents don't see fluoridation as a problem they only see us as the problem🤣sorry about that...
"Allowing diverting the conversation to teeth and oral health is a trap to avoid
"The proponents are completely missing the point and are a testament to willful ignorance."
I got absolutely skewered by someone when I brought up
"A scientist confirming his own prior finding, using the same dataset, at the same institution"
This isn't accurate. Warren et al 2026 uses the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. Warren et al 2025 uses the Highschool and Beyond dataset. It's different data.