Pete Evans: Pregnant Women Who Drink Fluoride Water Have Babies With A Lower IQ

Pete Evans is no stranger to trouble and has once again landed himself in hot water for actively supporting a new controversial study.

Results of a study published in a US medical journey concluded that pregnant women who drank water that contained fluoride gave birth to babies with a lower IQ.

Celebrity Chef Pete Evans came out in full support of the research telling the Herald Sun: “This has been known for ages, and this is just the tip of that iceberg.”

Fluoride Is Toxic

He continued: “Fluoride is a known neurotoxin and it should not be put in our water supply.”

“If people choose to add fluoride then it should be their choice to do so. I cannot wait for it to be eliminated from being added to Australian water supplies.”

Experts were quick to refute the claims made in the JAMA Pediatrics publication.

No Evidence!

Associate Professor Matt Hopcraft, the chief executive of the Australian Dental Association Victorian Branch was derisive about the chef’s support of the claims. He spoke to news.com.au saying:
“I think we should take public health advice from the experts and he should probably stick to the celebrity cheffing and leave public health policy to the experts.”

“Of course Pete is going to jump on board and say this is the silver bullet — as a lot of anti-fluoridationists will — but overwhelmingly there’s no evidence to link water fluoridation with health concerns.”

What The Study Said

The study involved 601 Canadian children from six major cities born between 2008 and 2012. 41 per cent of those involved in the study lived in communities supplied with fluoridated water.

Analysed data discovered maternal exposure to higher levels of fluoride during pregnancy was associated with lower IQ scores in children aged three to four years old.

“These findings indicate the possible need to reduce fluoride intake during pregnancy,” the researchers concluded.

Questions?

However many experts are questioning the study methods and the concluding results.

“I find it hard to take Pete Evan’s opinion seriously when he isn’t a dentist who has seen kids with rotten teeth in the non-fluoridated towns compared to the happy, healthy kids in fluoridated areas,” Dr Kristina Cain, of Queensland’s Refresh Dental Spa told news.com.au.

“Dentists have a moral and ethical obligation to the community and its health and are effectively putting ourselves out of business by advocating water fluoridation. That has to stand for something.”

Dr Michael Foley, spokesman for the Australian Dental Association, said anything was toxic if you had enough of it – water, oxygen, calcium, iron, salt and even caffeine.

“Does this mean we shouldn’t drink coffee? Of course not,” he said.

Support

There were, however, a few who defended Chef Evan’s viewpoint:

Dr Mark Diesendorf, an honorary associate professor in the environmental humanities group at Sydney’s University of NSW said:

“I’m opposed to fluoridation also, I must admit, but I wouldn’t come to that conclusion (to remove fluoride from water) on the present study alone,” he said.

“There’s a lot of other related studies that are entirely consistent with this, in the way of developmental neurological effects.

“I would argue pregnant women and also women feeding with formula should not use fluoridated water. There’s enough to be worried. We are now at a stage where this is something of concern.”

Most recently, Pete Evans hit headlines admitting he’d rather his kids ‘have cannabis’ than drink alcohol when they’re of age.

Do you believe Pete has a point? Tell us in your comments below.

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61 Comments

- - meedee said
  - 04 Jun 2023
    9:15 am
Well back in the day everyone in my area drank the tap water so there would have been an entire suburb of low QI babies and Im one of them.

- - Frankiielot said
  - 22 Jan 2022
    11:39 pm
He’s so stupid.
Seriously, he’s just a chef! When he made the paleo diet take off I rolled my eyes – again, he is a chef not a nutritionist!!! All those people who followed his diet are just s brainless. Sorry not sorry!!!!!!!!

- - mum300445 said
  - 08 Jul 2021
    11:18 pm
I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous.

- - Mummyofone77 said
  - 15 Jan 2020
    4:47 am
He thinks he is more educated than what he is, leave it to the experts Pete

- - nealsq said
  - 09 Jan 2020
    11:58 pm
why do people keep giving him airtime? He is an idiot

- - mom152736 said
  - 09 Jan 2020
    8:07 am
Ummmm scientific reason please???

- - ella12 said
  - 30 Dec 2019
    10:23 pm
I don’t think Pete has a lot of common sense.

- - BellaB said
  - 03 Nov 2019
    6:54 pm
Presumably his mum drnk a lot of fluoridated water while pregnant with him, then.
- mom471918 replied
  
  10 May 2022 , 11:59 am
  Too funny ???? ???? Pete Evans is a joke
- - gr82do said
  - 01 Nov 2019
    6:56 am
Seriously! We live an an area with flouridated water and my siblings are all high IQ achievers. We were all invited to attend a selective high school. Al most all of my primary school class graduated from UNi and several became MD or gained a PhD. I think there were other mitigating factors in that study. Conspiracy theories abound that govts want to keep their citizens down by using fluoride. Craziness. No lack of iodine etc, another story.

- - littlehandsofmine said
  - 24 Oct 2019
    11:23 am
hmmm it’s interesting

- - mom81879 said
  - 19 Oct 2019
    5:44 pm
Hmmmmm, I’m not sure. And even it was proven to be true, fluoride is added for dental health benefits. So we possibly have lower IQ humans with healthy teeth, or smarter humans with shocking teeth.

- - rachel1970 said
  - 30 Sep 2019
    8:19 pm
There is always someone out there trying to scare the S*** out of pregnant women for doing “normal” things like drinking water. If that were the case we’d have a lot of low IQ kids in this country.

- - mrsnaomiwalton@gmail.com said
  - 14 Sep 2019
    9:08 pm
I thought Tooth decay had decreased since fluoride has been added to water so it’s not all bad! As the closing comment states, more research before making big changes!

- - serotonin said
  - 05 Sep 2019
    10:00 am
I have always wondered whether fluoride in our water etc is doing us more harm than good, but I haven’t sat down and researched it myself, yet. As soon as I am able to get a filter for my tap I’ll be using the tank water for drinking. Looking forward to seeing the difference.

- - mom297125 said
  - 05 Sep 2019
    6:06 am
Pete in hot water again. Everyone has there own beliefs. We can educate ourselves on what is good and bad. At the end of the day, its up to ourselves what we put inside out bodies

- - MisChip said
  - 04 Sep 2019
    11:07 pm
I think Pete Evans should stick to what he is good at… which is umm….

- - mom101628 said
  - 04 Sep 2019
    10:05 pm
One would have to buy bottled water to not have fluoridated water in this country and forget about drinking it, what about cooking in it all the time? The only time I was worried was when one of my nieces who had eaten fluoridated toothpaste and also some tablets was diagnosed with a reaction to drinking fluoridated water. That was in the days before bottled water was so obvious in the country.

- - Cookfromscratchmum said
  - 04 Sep 2019
    5:06 pm
I thought he was a chef he’s become a doctor now

- - CJStar21 said
  - 04 Sep 2019
    3:47 pm
He’s entitled to his opinion but don’t add more worry and guilt on mothers than there already is, everything we do seems to harm our kids

- - rovermum said
  - 04 Sep 2019
    1:20 pm
Ahhh Pete… you have beautiful white teeth! How did that happen? Sadly, people listen to Pete and are so in awe of his white teeth that they don’t hear what he says. Based on this study? Really? What about the children I know who have high IQ and their mothers drank water with fluoride? Really Pete… your teeth are so lovely and white and shiny, I get lost in your teeth and don’t really hear what you’re saying. Just stop it… please!