Rense: Absurditites of Water Fluoridation

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The Absurdities Of Water Fluoridation

By Paul Connett, PhD

Prison Planet.com

10-1-3

 

Water fluoridation is a peculiarly American phenomenon. It started

at a time when Asbestos lined our pipes, lead was added to gasoline,

PCBs filled our transformers and DDT was deemed so " safe and

effective " that officials felt no qualms spraying kids in school

classrooms and seated at picnic tables. One by one all these

chemicals have been banned, but fluoridation remains untouched.

 

For over 50 years US government officials have confidently and

enthusiastically claimed that fluoridation is " safe and effective " .

 

However, they are seldom prepared to defend the practice in open

public debate. Actually, there are so many arguments against

fluoridation that it can get overwhelming.

 

To simplify things it helps to separate the ethical from the

scientific arguments.

 

For those for whom ethical concerns are paramount, the issue of

fluoridation is very simple to resolve. It is simply not ethical; we

simply shouldn't be forcing medication on people without

their " informed consent " . The bad news, is that ethical arguments

are not very influential in Washington, DC unless politicians are

very conscious of millions of people watching them. The good news is

that the ethical arguments are buttressed by solid common sense

arguments and scientific studies which convincingly show that

fluoridation is neither " safe and effective " nor necessary. I have

summarized the arguments in several categories:

 

Fluoridation is UNETHICAL because:

 

1) It violates the individual's right to informed consent to

medication.

 

2) The municipality cannot control the dose of the patient.

 

3) The municipality cannot track each individual's response.

 

4) It ignores the fact that some people are more vulnerable to

fluoride's toxic effects than others. Some people will suffer while

others may benefit.

 

5) It violates the Nuremberg code for human experimentation.

 

As stated by the recent recipient of the Nobel Prize for Medicine

(2000), Dr. Arvid Carlsson:

 

" I am quite convinced that water fluoridation, in a not-too-distant

future, will be consigned to medical history...Water fluoridation

goes against leading principles of pharmacotherapy, which is

progressing from a stereotyped medication - of the type 1 tablet 3

times a day - to a much more individualized therapy as regards both

dosage and selection of drugs. The addition of drugs to the drinking

water means exactly the opposite of an individualized therapy. "

 

As stated by Dr. Peter Mansfield, a physician from the UK and

advisory board member of the recent government review of

fluoridation (McDonagh et al 2000):

 

" No physician in his right senses would prescribe for a person he

has never met, whose medical history he does not know, a substance

which is intended to create bodily change, with the advice: 'Take as

much as you like, but you will take it for the rest of your life

because some children suffer from tooth decay. ' It is a

preposterous notion. "

 

Fluoridation is UNNECESSARY because:

 

1) Children can have perfectly good teeth without being exposed to

fluoride.

 

2) The promoters (CDC, 1999, 2001) admit that the benefits are

topical not systemic, so fluoridated toothpaste, which is

universally available, is a more rational approach to delivering

fluoride to the target organ (teeth) while minimizing exposure to

the rest of the body.

 

3) The vast majority of western Europe has rejected water

fluoridation, but has been equally successful as the US, if not more

so, in tackling tooth decay.

 

4) If fluoride was necessary for strong teeth one would expect to

find it in breast milk, but the level there is 0.01 ppm , which is

100 times LESS than in fluoridated tap water (IOM, 1997).

 

5) Children in non-fluoridated communities are already getting the

so-called " optimal " doses from other sources (Heller et al, 1997).

In fact, many are already being over-exposed to fluoride.

 

Fluoridation is INEFFECTIVE because:

 

1) Major dental researchers concede that fluoride's benefits are

topical not systemic (Fejerskov 1981; Carlos 1983; CDC 1999, 2001;

Limeback 1999; Locker 1999; Featherstone 2000).

 

2) Major dental researchers also concede that fluoride is

ineffective at preventing pit and fissure tooth decay, which is 85%

of the tooth decay experienced by children (JADA 1984; Gray 1987;

White 1993; Pinkham 1999).

 

3) Several studies indicate that dental decay is coming down just as

fast, if not faster, in non-fluoridated industrialized countries as

fluoridated ones (Diesendorf, 1986; Colquhoun, 1994; World Health

Organization, Online).

 

4) The largest survey conducted in the US showed only a minute

difference in tooth decay between children who had lived all their

lives in fluoridated compared to non-fluoridated communities. The

difference was not clinically significant nor shown to be

statistically significant (Brunelle & Carlos, 1990).

 

5) The worst tooth decay in the United States occurs in the poor

neighborhoods of our largest cities, the vast majority of which have

been fluoridated for decades.

 

6) When fluoridation has been halted in communities in Finland,

former East Germany, Cuba and Canada, tooth decay did not go up but

continued to go down (Maupome et al, 2001; Kunzel and Fischer, 1997,

2000; Kunzel et al, 2000 and Seppa et al, 2000).

 

Fluoridation is UNSAFE because:

 

1) It accumulates in our bones and makes them more brittle and prone

to fracture. The weight of evidence from animal studies, clinical

studies and epidemiological studies on this is overwhelming.

Lifetime exposure to fluoride will contribute to higher rates of hip

fracture in the elderly. (See studies)

 

2) It accumulates in our pineal gland, possibly lowering the

production of melatonin a very important regulatory hormone (Luke,

1997, 2001).

 

3) It damages the enamel (dental fluorosis) of a high percentage of

children. Between 30 and 50% of children have dental fluorosis on at

least two teeth in optimally fluoridated communities (Heller et al,

1997 and McDonagh et al, 2000).

 

4) There are serious, but yet unproven, concerns about a connection

between fluoridation and osteosarcoma in young men (Cohn, 1992), as

well as fluoridation and the current epidemics of both arthritis and

hypothyroidism.

 

5) In animal studies, fluoride at 1 ppm in drinking water increases

the uptake of aluminum into the brain (Varner et al, 1998).

 

6) Counties with 3 ppm or more of fluoride in their water have lower

fertility rates (Freni, 1994).

 

7) In human studies the fluoridating agents most commonly used in

the US not only increase the uptake of lead into children's blood

(Masters and Coplan, 1999, 2000) but are also associated with an

increase in violent behavior.

 

8) The margin of safety between the so-called therapeutic benefit of

reducing dental decay and many of these end points is either

nonexistent or precariously low.

 

Fluoridation is INEQUITABLE, because:

 

1) It will go to all households, and the poor cannot afford to avoid

it, if they want to, because they will not be able to purchase

bottled water or expensive removal equipment.

 

2) The poor are more likely to suffer poor nutrition which is known

to make children more vulnerable to fluoride's toxic effects

(Massler & Schour 1952; Marier & Rose 1977; ATSDR 1993; Teotia et

al, 1998).

 

3) Very rarely, if ever, do governments offer to pay the costs of

those who are unfortunate enough to get dental fluorosis severe

enough to require expensive treatment.

 

Fluoridation is INEFFICIENT and NOT COST-EFFECTIVE because:

 

1) Only a small fraction of the water fluoridated actually reaches

the target. Most of it ends up being used to wash the dishes, to

flush the toilet or to water our lawns and gardens.

 

2) It would be totally cost-prohibitive to use pharmaceutical grade

sodium fluoride (the substance which has been tested) as a

fluoridating agent for the public water supply. Water fluoridation

is artificially cheap because, unknown to most people, the

fluoridating agent is an unpurified hazardous waste product from the

phosphate fertilizer industry.

 

3) If it was deemed appropriate to swallow fluoride (even though its

major benefits are topical not systemic) a safer and more cost-

effective approach would be to provide fluoridated bottle water in

supermarkets free of charge. This approach would allow both the

quality and the dose to be controlled. Moreover, it would not force

it on people who don't want it.

 

Fluoridation is UNSCIENTIFICALLY PROMOTED. For example:

 

1) In 1950, the US Public Health Service enthusiastically endorsed

fluoridation before one single trial had been completed.

 

2) Even though we are getting many more sources of fluoride today

than we were in 1945, the so called " optimal concentration " of 1 ppm

has remained unchanged.

 

3) The US Public health Service has never felt obliged to monitor

the fluoride levels in our bones even though they have known for

years that 50% of the fluoride we swallow each day accumulates

there.

 

4) Officials that promote fluoridation never check to see what the

levels of dental fluorosis are in the communities before they

fluoridate, even though they know that this level indicates whether

children are being overdosed or not.

 

5) No US agency has yet to respond to Luke's finding that fluoride

accumulates in the human pineal gland, even though her finding was

published in 1994 (abstract), 1997 (Ph. D. thesis), 1998 (paper

presented at conference of the International Society for Fluoride

Research), and 2001 (published in Caries Research).

 

6) The CDC's 1999, 2001 reports advocating fluoridation were both

six years out of date in the research they cited on health concerns.

 

Fluoridation is UNDEFENDABLE IN OPEN PUBLIC DEBATE.

 

The proponents of water fluoridation refuse to defend this practice

in open debate because they know that they would lose that debate. A

vast majority of the health officials around the US and in other

countries who promote water fluoridation do so based upon someone

else's advice and not based upon a first hand familiarity with the

scientific literature. This second hand information produces second

rate confidence when they are challenged to defend their position.

Their position has more to do with faith than it does with reason.

 

Those who pull the strings of these public health 'puppets', do know

the issues, and are cynically playing for time and hoping that they

can continue to fool people with the recitation of a long list

of " authorities " which support fluoridation instead of engaging the

key issues. As Brian Martin made clear in his book Scientific

Knowledge in Controversy: The Social Dynamics of the Fluoridation

Debate (1991), the promotion of fluoridation is based upon the

exercise of political power not on rational analysis. The question

to answer, therefore, is: " Why is the US Public Health Service

choosing to exercise its power in this way? "

 

Motivations - especially those which have operated over several

generations of decision makers - are always difficult to ascertain.

However, whether intended or not, fluoridation has served to

distract us from several key issues. It has distracted us from:

 

a) The failure of one of the richest countries in the world to

provide decent dental care for poor people.

 

b) The failure of 80% of American dentists to treat children on

Medicaid.

 

c) The failure of the public health community to fight the huge over

consumption of sugary foods by our nation's children, even to the

point of turning a blind eye to the wholesale introduction of soft

drink machines into our schools. Their attitude seems to be if

fluoride can stop dental decay why bother controlling sugar intake.

 

d) The failure to adequately address the health and ecological

effects of fluoride pollution from large industry. Despite the

damage which fluoride pollution has caused, and is still causing,

few environmentalists have ever conceived of fluoride as

a 'pollutant.'

 

e) The failure of the US EPA to develop a Maximum Contaminant Level

(MCL) for fluoride in water which can be scientifically defended.

 

f) The fact that more and more organofluorine compounds are being

introduced into commerce in the form of plastics, pharmaceuticals

and pesticides. Despite the fact that some of these compounds pose

just as much a threat to our health and environment as their

chlorinated and brominated counterparts (i.e. they are highly

persistent and fat soluble and many accumulate in the food chains

and our body fat), those organizations and agencies which have acted

to limit the wide-scale dissemination of these other halogenated

products, seem to have a blind spot for the dangers posed by

organofluorine compounds.

 

So, while fluoridation is neither effective nor safe, it continues

to provide a convenient cover for many of the interests which stand

to profit from the public being misinformed about fluoride.

 

Unfortunately, because government officials have put so much of

their credibility on the line defending fluoridation, it will be

very difficult for them to speak honestly and openly about the

issue. As with the case of mercury amalgams, it is difficult for

institutions such as the American Dental Association to concede

health risks because of the liabilities waiting in the wings if they

were to do so.

 

However, difficult as it may be, it is nonetheless essential - in

order to protect millions of people from unnecessary harm - that the

US Government begin to move away from its anachronistic, and

increasingly absurd, status quo on this issue. There are precedents.

They were able to do this with hormone replacement therapy.

 

But getting any honest action out of the US Government on this is

going to be difficult. Effecting change is like driving a nail

through wood - science can sharpen the nail but we need the weight

of public opinion to drive it home. Thus, it is going to require a

sustained effort to educate the American people and then recruiting

their help to put sustained pressure on our political

representatives. At the very least we need a moratorium on

fluoridation (which simply means turning off the tap for a few

months) until there has been a full Congressional hearing on the key

issues with testimony offered by scientists on both sides. With the

issue of education we are in better shape than ever before. Most of

the key studies are available on the internet and there are

videotaped interviews with many of the scientists and protagonists

whose work has been so important to a modern re-evaluation of this

issue.

 

With this new information, more and more communities are rejecting

new fluoridation proposals at the local level. On the national

level, there have been some hopeful developments as well, such as

the EPA Headquarters Union coming out against fluoridation and the

Sierra Club seeking to have the issue re-examined. However, there is

still a huge need for other national groups to get involved in order

to make this the national issue it desperately needs to be.

 

I hope that if there are RFW readers who disagree with me on this,

they will rebut these arguments. If they can't than I hope they will

get off the fence and help end one of the silliest policies ever

inflicted on the citizens of the US. It is time to end this folly of

water fluoridation without further delay. It is not going to be

easy.

 

Fluoridation represents a very powerful " belief system " backed up by

special interests and by entrenched governmental power and

influence.

 

Paul Connett.

 

All references cited can be found at

http://www.slweb.org/bibliography.

 

http://www.prisonplanet.com/09_03_03_connett.html