Do silicofluorides boost risk of toxic lead levels?
Ongoing research by Roger Masters and colleagues indicates that lead, a heavy metal linked to aberrant behavior and criminality (see story on this page) has an accomplice in its dirty work: the silicofluorides (SiFs) commonly used to fluoridate water supplies. In 1998 (see related article, Crime Times, 1998, Vol. 4, No. 4, Page 1), Masters and Myron Coplan analyzed data from more than 200 Massachusetts communities and found that children’s average lead uptake correlated only weakly with lead levels in the communities’ water supplies, but that children in communities using SiFs had higher average lead levels than those in communities that used sodium fluoride or did not fluoridate their water. Moreover, the percentage of children with dangerously high lead levels was markedly higher in the communities using SiFs. The researchers’ next study, based on data from the Third National Health and Nutrition Evaluation Survey (NHANES III), found a similar correlation between SiFs and lead levels
