> Same reason why they stared iodine to salt… because people were having mental development issues.
This is not directly related to the topic of Fluoride, but Iodine was actually initially introduced to reduce goiters. The mental benefits were a wonderful, unexpected side-effect. Studies have put the effects anywhere between 8-15 IQ bump for populations that were Iodine deficient. Pretty jaw dropping when you think about it.
About 2.5% of the population has an intellectual impairment (if mean IQ is 100, and SD 15, 2.5% have IQ less than 70 the WHO cut off). Of this 2.5% some will have social/adaptive impaitment similarly 2SD below the mean and have an "intellectual/learning disability".
Move that mean down one SD (15 IQ points). And now OVER 15% of the people meet the intellectual impairment criteria.
Put it another way, due to the shape of the normal distribition moving IQ down 10-15 points amounts to 2-3X increase in the number with abnormally low IQ.
Cut to the modern era, where fewer and fewer jobs are available for those with intellectual impairments, and the world requires more and more technical prowess and the situation is far worse than the figures appear.
This is not directly related to the topic of Fluoride, but Iodine was actually initially introduced to reduce goiters. The mental benefits were a wonderful, unexpected side-effect. Studies have put the effects anywhere between 8-15 IQ bump for populations that were Iodine deficient. Pretty jaw dropping when you think about it.