[SSRI-Research] Exploring the link between FLUoride and FLUoxetine further - The Prozac Connect

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[sSRI-Research] Exploring the link between FLUoride and FLUoxetine

further - The Prozac Connect

 

Exploring the link between FLUoride and FLUoxetine further - The Prozac Connect

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1233560,00.html

 

A Kick in the Teeth

 

It was hailed as a harmless chemical that would prevent tooth decay. But a

new book claims that fluoride could be linked to serious health problems.

 

Bob Woffinden

Tuesday June 8, 2004

 

The Guardian

 

A 50-year-old medical controversy is about to be re-ignited. The government

is considering the introduction of further fluoridation schemes throughout

the country. To facilitate that, the Water Act passed last November

indemnified water companies from civil or criminal actions as a result of

adding fluoride to public water supplies.

 

Fluoridation was first advanced in the United States at the end of the

second world war. Proponents argued that fluoride in water and toothpaste

would help to protect teeth and prevent decay. It was a time of scientific

evangelism, when chemicals meant progress and the public trusted them to

bring about a safer, cleaner future.

 

Throughout the 1950s and 60s, fluoride was added to public water supplies

not just across the US but also in Britain. The areas now served by the

Severn Trent, Northumbrian and Anglian water companies are fluoridated,

mainly those in the West Midlands and Tyneside - about 10% of the UK

population. Much of the Republic of Ireland has been fluoridated since 1964...

 

As dental health rapidly improved during those decades, so the benefits of

fluoridation were held to be incontestable. However, with better diet and

treatment, dental health was improving across the western world,

irrespective of fluoridation. Recent studies of communities in Finland,

Cuba, Canada and east Germany have found that rates of dental decay did not

rise (and, indeed, continued to decline) after fluoridation was abandoned.

Fluoridation today is largely restricted to English-speaking countries.

 

Many believe that the effects of fluoride on teeth, beneficial or otherwise,

are irrelevant; what matters is the accumulating research evidence that

fluoride may have serious adverse health effects. However, the government

wanted to extend fluoridation schemes, ostensibly to benefit those in poorer

areas. So, it set up the York Review to allow leading scientists to examine

the issue. One of the review's conclusions in September 2000 was that there

had been " surprisingly " little research into fluoride's harmful effects, and

emphasised the need for " high-quality research " , specifically into the

possible links between fluoride and " infant mortality, congenital defects

and IQ " .

 

A subsequent inquiry into fluoridation by the Medical Research Council

recommended an updated analysis of data on fluoride and cancer rates, but

concluded that " there is no evidence for any significant health effects on

the immune system, or reproductive and developmental (birth) defects and no

specific research is recommended, although it is appropriate to keep the

area under review. "

 

Now, a new book, The Fluoride Deception by Christopher Bryson, just

published in the US, examines the background of the fluoridation debate.

Bryson, who has had the advantage of access to recently declassified files,

concludes that fluoridation is a triumph not of medical science but of US

government spin, adding that, " The very same professionals and institutions

who told us that fluoride was safe said much the same about lead, asbestos

or DDT, or persuaded us to smoke more cigarettes. "

 

In fact, in the 1930s, the very first researcher into fluoride, a Dane

called Kaj Roholm, specifically advised against exposing children to

fluoride, but his work was soon buried. Bryson links the subsequent

" discovery " that fluoride benefited teeth with research paid for by major US

industries that needed to be able to defend " lawsuits from workers and

communities poisoned by industrial fluoride emissions " .

 

In 1955, farmers in Oregon took Reynolds Metals to court, alleging harm from

fluoride emissions. The key medical experts for the farmers were Donald

Hunter, an English specialist in industrial diseases, who told the court

that fluoride was particularly dangerous because it was " an enzyme poison " ;

and Dr Richard Capps from Chicago, who gave evidence that fluoride displaced

iodine in the body, thus leading to thyroid dysfunction. The farmers won a

sensational victory, and US industrialists were shaken. Dr Robert Kehoe,

whose work was funded by major US companies, resolved - according to Bryson

- to create a new medical orthodoxy that would be unassailable in future

court cases. Kehoe set up an experiment with beagles, with the dogs

breathing in fluoride. The results were alarming, and showed that fluoride

travelled rapidly from the lungs into the blood stream, causing significant

harm. Lawyers for major US companies received copies of the dog study;

needless to say, it went no further. Until Bryson found it, no one knew of

its existence.

 

The drive to encourage public acceptance of fluoride was handed over to

Edward Bernays, known as the father of PR, or the original spin doctor, and

the man who helped persuade women to take up smoking. " You can get

practically any idea accepted, " Bernays explained, " if doctors are in

favour. The public is willing to accept it because a doctor is an authority

to most people, regardless of how much he knows or doesn't know. "

 

Among the things that the doctors who endorsed fluoridation didn't know,

according to Bryson, were that research impugning fluoride's safety was

either suppressed or not conducted in the first place. When one doctor

reported that fluoride supplements produced harmful side-effects in pregnant

women, he received no funding to carry out further work.

 

So fluoride became equated with scientific progress, and those opposing it

were dismissed as cranks. For 30 years, little changed, with both sides in

their entrenched positions.

 

Yet putting fluoride into the water supply - at what the Department of

Health considers to be the " safe " level of one part per million - would,

according to opponents in the UK, appear to ignore some important

considerations. First, they say it does not allow for individual

sensitivities to fluoride. Second, those suffering dietary deficiencies, who

may be low in calcium, magnesium and essential nutrients (in other words,

the poor and those in ill-health), will be more vulnerable to fluoride's

toxic properties. Third, the level of fluoride in the water supply is no

indication of an individual's actual exposure. Those in certain professions

- for example, labourers or athletes - will take in more water, and

therefore more fluoride.

 

Also, there is regular exposure from other sources - fluoride toothpaste, of

course, as well as pesticide residues and pharmaceuticals. In 1994, the

World Health Organisation recommended that public health administrators

should be aware of " the total fluoride exposure in the population " . In fact,

in Britain during the past 30 years, anti-fluoridation campaigners claim

that the public's overall exposure to fluoride has become much greater,

while the government's ostensible " safe " limit has remained exactly the

same.

 

They say that two of the major concerns in childhood development today could

be explained by fluoride. If it interferes with the central nervous system,

as some studies have shown, then that could help to explain the growing

prevalence of Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

 

There is also concern that fluoride displaces iodine in the human body.

Iodine is essential for normal functioning of the thyroid gland. If

fluoride, by displacing iodine, does inhibit thyroid activity, then that

would lead to weight gain and obesity.

 

Moreover, iodine is essential for brain development. There are now

epidemiological studies from China that link fluoride exposure with lower IQ

levels. After Dr Phyllis Mullinex, a leading neurotoxicologist in Boston,

had carried out work on rats, she reported that fluoride was likely to lead

to lower IQs. She was fired.

 

Bryson believes that what has made fluoride so impervious to criticism so

far is not just the PR offensive, but also - paradoxically - fluoride's

overall toxicity. Unlike chemicals that have a signature effect (like the

mesothelioma caused by asbestos), fluoride is, he says, " a systemic poison,

likely to produce a range of health problems " , so that its effects are

harder to diagnose.

 

" We've known about all this for a long time, " says Jane Jones of the

National Pure Water Association, which campaigns against fluoride, " now I

hope the wider public will sit up and take notice " .

 

There are many in the UK who support the fluoridation of our water supply,

among them Ian Wylie, chief executive of the British Dental Association, who

argued in this paper recently: " Scientific opinion worldwide is that

low-dose fluoride has a beneficial effect on oral health. In America, almost

two-thirds of the population has drunk water with fluoride, without a

problem, for decades. "

The government has promised that no further fluoridation schemes will be

implemented without public consultations beforehand. The debate is likely to

be fierce and prolonged.

 

... The Fluoride Deception is available in this country through Turnaround

Distributors.

 

Links:

Bfsweb.org

Fluoridealert.org

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004