Water Fluoridation

Water fluoridation has been practised in many countries over various periods of time since first instituted by the US Public Health Service in 1945. Presently only six countries fluoridate the water supplies of more than 50% of their population. These are Australia; USA; Ireland; New Zealand; Singapore and Columbia.

Fluoridation has been promoted and supported in the belief that it ‘substantially’ reduces tooth decay and is ‘safe’ for general health.

What is Water Fluoridation?

Water fluoridation involves the intentional dosing of municipal water supplies with fluoride waste products from industry in order to achieve a fluoride concentration of approximately one part in a million by weight. That is, approximately 1 part of acidic and highly toxic liquid waste is added to roughly 180,000 parts of municipal water. Highly alkaline sodium hydroxide then needs to be added to prevent the toxic fluoride component from leaching copper from copper plumbing.

Exerpted from "WHY I CHANGED MY MIND ABOUT WATER FLUORIDATION"
Dr. John Colquhoun © 1997 University of Chicago Press

Former Advocate
To explain how I came to change my opinion about water fluoridation, I must go back to when I was an ardent advocate of the procedure. I now realize that I had learned, in my training in dentistry, only one side of the scientific controversy over fluoridation. I had been taught, and believed, that there was really no scientific case against fluoridation, and that only misinformed lay people and a few crackpot professionals were foolish enough to oppose it. I recall how, after I had been elected to a local government in Auckland (New Zealand's largest city, where I practised dentistry for many years and where I eventually became the Principal Dental Officer) I had fiercely - and, I now regret, rather arrogantly - poured scorn on another Council member (a lay person who had heard and accepted the case against fluoridation) and persuaded the Mayor
and majority of my fellow councillors to agree to fluoridation of our water supply.

A few years later, when I had become the city's Principal Dental Officer, I published a paper in the New Zealand Dental Journal that reported how children's tooth decay had declined in the city following fluoridation of its water, to which I attributed the decline, pointing out that the greatest benefit appeared to be in low-income areas [1].

My duties as a public servant included supervision of the city's school dental clinics, which were part of a national School Dental Service which provided regular six-monthly dental treatment, with strictly enforced uniform diagnostic standards, to almost all (98 percent) school children up to the age of 12 or 13 years. I thus had access to treatment records, and therefore tooth decay rates, of virtually all the city's children.

In the study I claimed that such treatment statistics "provide a valid measure of the dental health of our child population" [1]. That claim was accepted by my professional colleagues, and the study is cited in the official history of the New Zealand Dental Association [2].

INFORMATION CONFIDED
I was so articulate and successful in my support of water fluoridation that my public service superiors in our capital city, Wellington, approached me and asked me to make fluoridation the subject of a world study tour in 1980 - after which I would become their expert on fluoridation and lead a campaign to promote fluoridation in those parts of New Zealand which had resisted having fluoride put into their drinking water.

Before I left on the tour my superiors confided to me that they were worried about some new evidence which had become available: information they had collected on the amount of treatment children were receiving in our school dental clinics seemed to show that tooth decay was declining just as much in places in New Zealand where fluoride had not been added to the water supply. But they felt sure that, when they had collected more detailed information, on all children (especially the oldest treated, 12-13 year age group) from all fluoridated and all nonfluoridated places [3] - information which they would start to collect while was I away on my tour - it would reveal that the teeth were better in the fluoridated places: not the 50 to 60 percent difference which we had always claimed resulted from fluoridation, but a significant difference nonetheless. They thought that the decline in tooth decay in the nonfluoridated places must have resulted from the use of fluoride toothpastes and fluoride supplements, and from fluoride applications to the children's teeth in dental clinics, which we had started at the same time as fluoridation.

Being a keen fluoridationist, I readily accepted their explanation. Previously, of course, we had assured the public that the only really effective way to reduce tooth decay was to add fluoride to the water supply.

WORLD STUDY TOUR
My world study tour took me to North America, Britain, Europe, Asia, and Australia [4]. In the United States I discussed fluoridation with Ernest Newbrun in San Francisco, Brian Burt in Ann Arbor, dental scientists and officials like John Small in Bethesda near Washington, DC, and others at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. I then proceeded to Britain, where I met Michael Lennon, John Beale, Andrew Rugg-Gunn, and Neil Jenkins, as well as many other scientists and public health officials in Britain and Europe. Although I visited only pro-fluoridation research centers and scientists, I came across the same situation which concerned my superiors in New Zealand. Tooth decay was declining without water fluoridation. Again I was assured, however, that more extensive and thorough surveys would show that fluoridation was the most effective and efficient way to reduce tooth decay. Such large-scale surveys, on very large numbers of children, were nearing completion in the United States, and the authorities conducting them promised to send me the results.

LESSON FROM HISTORY
I now realize that what my colleagues and I were doing was what the history of science shows all professionals do when their pet theory is confronted by disconcerting new evidence: they bend over backwards to explain away the new evidence. They try very hard to keep their theory intact - especially so if their own professional reputations depend on maintaining that theory. (Some time after I graduated in dentistry almost half a century ago, I also graduated in history studies, my special interest being the history of science - which may partly explain my re-examination of the fluoridation theory ahead of many of my fellow dentists.)

So I returned from my study tour reinforced in my pro-fluoridation beliefs by these reassurances from fluoridationists around the world. I expounded these beliefs to my superiors, and was duly appointed chairman of a national "Fluoridation Promotion Committee." I was instructed to inform the public, and my fellow professionals, that water fluoridation resulted in better children's teeth, when compared with places with no fluoridation.

Surprise: Teeth Better Without Fluoridation?
Read the rest of this remarkable true story here....

Professionals Appearing in the DVD

* Earl Baldwin, British House of Lords:
* Dr. Arvid Carlsson Nobel Laureate in Medicine:
* Dr. Robert Carton, FMR President, EPA Union:
* Sir Iain Chalmers, Health Services Researcher:
* Dr Paul Connett, Environmental Chemist:
* Brent Foster, Oregon Sierra Club:
* Dr. William Hirzy, Vice President, EPA Union:
* Dr. Vyvyan Howard, Fetal Patho-Toxicologist:
* Dr. Robert Isaacson, NRC Panel Member:
* Dr. Tim Kropp, Environmental Working Dentist:
* Dr. Harvey Limeback, National Research Council Panelist & Dentist:
* Dr Phyllis Mullenix, Pharmacologist, Toxicologist:
* Dr. Bill Osmunson, Dentist:
*
Dr. Kathleen Thiessen, Risk Assessment Scientist:

Old Film Track: As a result of fluoridation our children will be healthier and happier.There is no health hazard that justifies postponing water fluoridation.

Dr Paul Connett, Environmental Chemist: You’re not dealing with a benign substance.There’s much too much risk for very little benefit

Old Film track: Fluoride is safe.

Earl Baldwin, British House of Lords: They decided far too early before the science was properly in, that fluoridation was a good thing.

Dr. Harvey Limeback, Environmental Working Dentist: The dental community has no idea of the toxicology behind fluoride.

Dr. Kathleen Thiessen, Risk Assessment Scientist: Fluoride does not just affect your teeth.

Dr Phyllis Mullenix, Pharmacologist, Toxicologist: Fluoride is a neurotoxin

Dr. Tim Kropp, Environmental Working Dentist - so many people throughout the US every day.

Dr. Bill Osmunson, Dentist: So who’s responsible? Who’s the doctor making sure we’re not getting too much

Dr. Vyvyan Howard, Fetal Patho-Toxicologist: The weight of evidence is more about it doing damage than against.

William Hirzy, Vice President, EPA Union: This is against all principles of modern pharmacology. It’s really obsolete.

Water fluoridation is the practice of adding fluoride compounds to the public water supply for the purpose of reducing tooth decay. The policy which began in the United States in the 1940’s, has been hailed by the Oral Health Division of the US Centre for Disease Control as one of the top ten public health achievements of the 20th century. However a growing body of science indicates that fluoridation is neither safe nor effective. In this video we examine why over two thousand health, scientific, medical, dental and environmental professionals are calling for an end to fluoridation worldwide.

FLUORIDATION AND MEDICAL ETHICS

Dr. Bill Osmunson, Dentist: Water fluoridation is a way of dispensing a drug.
Sir Iain Chalmers, Health Services Researcher: Fluoride is a medicine.Fluoride is being put in specifically to alter you physically. To make a physical change in you.

Brent Foster, Oregon Sierra Club: This is not chlorine. This is not any number of the other chemicals used to treat the water, make the water safe and drinkable.

Sir Iain Chalmers, Health Services Researcher: Not like chlorine used to make the water safe and kill the bugs in the water supply.

Brent Foster, Oregon Sierra Club: This is the only thing anywhere in the world that gets to the drinking supply to actually treat the human, to treat the body.

Dr Phyllis Mullenix, Pharmacologist, Toxicologist: There is absolutely no drug on the market that’s given in a one dose fits all situations.

Dr. Arvid Carlsson, Nobel Laureate in Medicine. It’s absolutely obsolete. In modern pharmacology it’s so clear that even if you have a fixed dose of a drug, different individuals respond very differently to one and the same dose. Now in this case you have it in the water and people are drinking different amounts of water so you have huge variations in the consumption.

Dr. Bill Osmunson, Dentist. You can have an athlete, a labourer who’s drinking many, many times as much water. You can have a diabetic whose drinking a ton of water compared to the average.

Dr Phyllis Mullenix, Pharmacologist, Toxicologist: The whole name of the game in toxicology is to give the right dose to the right person at the right time. And that’s not what fluoridation does. It can’t do it.

Dr. Kathleen Thiessen, Risk Assessment Scientist. I would prefer an individual use of a drug. I would have no problem with a doctor who is then prescribing for a patient that he was keeping in touch with and monitoring for possible side effects and for the efficacy of the drug. That’s essentially what’s done with any other drug. And that’s the way it should be done for fluoride. But we don’t put other things in the water to try to keep everybody’s blood pressure down or everybody’s stroke risk down. And there’s no reason we should be trying a ‘one size fits all’ approach for this either.

Earl Baldwin, British House of Lords: The problem with adding medicine to water is an obvious one of consent. People can’t give their informed consent which is a basic of medical ethics.

Dr Paul Connett, Environmental Chemist: We are allowing communities to do to everybody in the community what an individual doctor cannot do to an individual patient and that is prescribe medication regardless of the informed consent of the patient.

Earl Baldwin, British House of Lords: What physician you know, in his right mind, would treat somebody whose medical history he doesn’t know, who he’s never met, with a substance that’s meant to do change in their bodies and just with the advice to have as little or as much as you like but you’ll take it for a lifetime because it’s meant to help someone else’s teeth.

Dr. Bill Osmunson, Dentist: Voters medicate each other whether they like it or not and if 51% of the voters say we’re going to medicate everybody in town then they all get medicated.

DO WE NEED FLUORIDE?

Dr. Tim Kropp, Environmental Working Dentist: Fluoride is not an essential element.
Dr. Kathleen Thiessen, Risk Assessment Scientist. There’s not a bodily requirement for fluoride.

Earl Baldwin, British House of Lords: Fluoride is not an essential nutrient as far as the UK goes. You look it up in the books to see what our Department of Health says and they say that no essential use has been found for fluoride in the human body. So it is not in the category of vitamins and apart from anything it’s miles more toxic than any of the vitamins.

Fluoride is no longer considered an essential factor for human growth and development.

DOES FLUORIDE NEED TO BE SWALLOWED?

Dr. Kathleen Thiessen, Risk Assessment Scientist: Whatever benefit there is from fluoride on teeth is topical rather than systemic.
“[Fluoride’s] actions primarily are topical for both adults and children” It’s been shown that it’s really a topical effect principally, rather than a systemic effect.

Dr. Bill Osmunson, Dentist: It’s effective topically, not when it’s swallowed.

Dr. Robert Carton, FMR President, EPA Union. There’s no reason for people to be exposing all their internal organs to fluoride when, if it works, you can do something topically.

Dr William Hirzy, Vice President, EPA Union: If you want to prevent sunburn, you don’t drink suntan lotion. You put it on your skin. And so if you want to have the benefits of fluoride in oral health, what you do is put it on the surface of the tooth and not drink it.

Sir Iain Chalmers, Health Services Researcher: The quality of evidence for topical fluoride is in a different league from the evidence on water fluoridation. I mean absolutely no question about that.

Dr. Tim Kropp, Environmental Working Dentist. Adding fluoride to toothpaste, you are going to ingest some of it. And that needs to be taken seriously. But it’s not made to be ingested. It’s made to be rubbed on to the surface of the tooth which is where you’re supposed to have it. It’s a much smarter way to go about using fluoride in dentistry.

Old Film Track: As a result of fluoridation our children will be healthier and happier.

Dr. Vyvyan Howard, Fetal Patho-Toxicologist: It’s why they accepted the topical application of fluoride to the surface of teeth is beneficial. But I can see absolutely no justification for asking the whole population of a nation to take it systemically, to swallow it, for that benefit because it’s available in toothpastes, it’s available in dental treatment to the dentist. So I don’t think you can justify the fluoridation of drinking water along the lines of a topical treatment of teeth. It’s illogical.

Dr. Harvey Limeback, Environmental Working Dentist: One of the recommendations I’ve made is, because we now know it doesn’t need to be swallowed, that the public have to be informed. Again, informed consent. They should be told that it doesn’t work by swallowing it.

DO MOST COUNTRIES FLUORIDATE WATER?

Dr. Robert Carton, FMR President, EPA Union: One of the things that the proponents are very careful to stay away from, is to mention how many people don’t fluoridate.

Dr. Tim Kropp, Environmental Working Dentist: Most of the western world is not fluoridated. We are definitely in the minority in the fact that we push water fluoridation.

Dr. Bill Osmunson, Dentist: Many of the countries in the world, the developed countries, no longer fluoridate, never did fluoridate.

Dr Paul Connett, Environmental Chemist: Most European countries do not fluoridate. Austria, Belgium, The Netherlands, France, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Denmark Iceland, Italy, Greece, Portugal. The overwhelming [majority of] countries in the world do not fluoridate and guess what? The teeth are just as good, if not better, than ours.

Is there less tooth decay in fluoridated countries? Sir Iain Chalmers, Health Services Researcher: One of the most striking things I suppose, was to look at trends in tooth decay over time in various countries.

Earl Baldwin, British House of Lords: The comparison between fluoridated countries like America and unfluoridated ones like most of Europe and indeed most of the world are very interesting.

Dr Paul Connett: Environmental Chemist. If you look at the World Health Organization data base for 12 year olds, the tooth decay has been coming down as rapidly in these non fluoridated countries, as it’s been coming down in the United States and other fluoridated countries.

Dr. Tim Kropp: Environmental Working Dentist. Countries which don’t fluoridate have seen the same decrease in tooth decay that we have seen over the same time span.

Sir Iain Chalmers: Health Services Researcher. If you ask someone to pick out the lines [on the graph] which are in countries that are fluoridated and countries that aren’t fluoridated, actually you can’t pick them out. So I found that very surprising against the background as I say of having being a default fluoridationist.

HOW MUCH FLUORIDE ARE WE INGESTING?

Brent Foster: Oregon Sierra Club. What you really need to look at and what matters in the end, is what’s your total body load?

Dr. Tim Kropp, Environmental Working Dentist: Some people are getting a lot of different fluoride from a lot of different sources.

Dr. Bill Osmunson, Dentist: We’ve had a tremendous increase in fluoride from many sources. Water is one source. When we drink that water, when it’s made into soda pops, when it’s made into beverages, when it’s made into soups, when it’s made into other products, we get fluoride from that source also.

Dr. Tim Kropp, Environmental Working Dentist: And we also have a lot of pesticides that have come on the market, that leave fluoride residues on fruit and vegetables.

Brent Foster, Oregon Sierra Club: Fluoride is a very common component in pesticides. So, you know if you drink a glass of grape juice that’s non organic grape juice and it’s got skins on it you’re going to get a very high level of fluoride just from your grape juice.
Dr. Tim Kropp, Environmental Working Dentist: And you’re also getting it from toothpaste. Children swallow quite a bit of toothpaste. Even if they’re told not to swallow it, it just happens by accident. They don’t rinse as well and sometimes they don’t have a good swallowing action and therefore they’re getting a lot of fluoride from that. “Virtually all authors have noted that some children could ingest more fluoride from [toothpaste] alone than is recommended as a total daily intake of fluoride ingestion” Journal of Public Health Dentistry Dr. Bill Osmunson, Dentist: So who’s monitoring this exposure? When are we getting too much? No one’s monitoring it. Nobody’s looking at the total exposure to ensure that we’re not getting too much and certain sub groups are not getting too much.

Brent Foster, Oregon Sierra Club. The reality is we need to reduce our fluoride intake.

ARE KIDS BEING OVERDOSED?

Dr Paul Connett, Environmental Chemist: In 2005, the Centre for Disease Control admitted that 32% of our children in the United States including children in non-fluoridated areas have dental fluorosis.
Dr. Kathleen Thiessen, Risk Assessment Scientist: About a third of the children in this country have some form of dental fluorosis meaning that they had too much fluoride exposure during their early childhood.

Dr. Bill Osmunson, Dentist: Dental fluorosis is damage to the tooth because of too much fluoride exposure. We’ve swallowed too much fluoride and it shows up as white spots or brown spots on the teeth.

Dr. Harvey Limeback, Environmental Working Dentist: You see these white spots or splotches or lines or in more severe fluorosis you actually see the surface layers flaking off, you see brown spots And in severe cases there’s actual chipping, pitting and erosion of the tooth.

Dr Paul Connett, Environmental Chemist: Dental fluorosis is a bio marker your child has been over exposed to fluoride during the development of their teeth.

Dr. Harvey Limeback, Environmental Working Dentist: We now believe that there is several mechanisms involved. Fluoride could be inhibiting the enzymes the seroproteanases that are degrading the final traces of proteins that are left behind in the teeth.

Dr. Kathleen Thiessen, Risk Assessment Scientist: The mechanisms have something to do with the enamel forming proteins or inhibition of some enzymes during that critical period.

Dr Phyllis Mullenix, Pharmacologist, Toxicologist: To do that - impacting the enamel cells of the teeth - means that it can also impact cells elsewhere in the body.

Dr Paul Connett, Environmental Chemist: The promoters have always had this faith that you could damage the growing tooth enamel, the enzymes, the G proteins or however that happens without damaging any other tissue in the body at the same time and I think that’s very unlikely.

Dr. William Hirzy, Vice President, EPA Union: Not only is it a threat - what’s happening in the teeth is very likely happening in the bones as well because you have a similar type of structure as epoxy hepatite neural structure in the bone and the tooth.

Dr. Tim Kropp, Environmental Working Dentist: Your teeth are sort of a window into your bone, a window into your scalp?

Dr. William Hirzy, Vice President, EPA Union: So if there are these adverse effects going on in your teeth there are very likely to be adverse effects going on in the boneDr Phyllis Mullenix, Pharmacologist, Toxicologist: It’s a sign of toxicity. It’s not just to be taken or dismissed as merely a cosmetic effect.

DOES FLUORIDE HAVE SIDE EFFECTS?

Dr Paul Connett, Environmental Chemist: This whole debate has been captured for over fifty years by the dental lobby. By dentists whose preoccupation is teeth. Well, teeth are not the only issue in the body.
Dr. Bill Osmunson, Dentist: As dentists we diagnose pathology of the mouth, diseases of the mouth and tend to disregard or not involve ourselves with diseases of the rest of the body because it’s not within our purview; it’s not within our licence to diagnose other parts of the body.

Dr Phyllis Mullenix, Pharmacologist, Toxicologist: Most definitely the dental community has a monopoly if you will, on the study of fluoride ands they have absolutely used tunnel vision to look at fluoride as a dental concern. However it is not just a dental concern. It’s a toxicity concern.

Dr. Bill Osmunson, Dentist: National Research Council has a research report which just came out in 2006 which is one of the best sources of finding out what fluoride is doing to the rest of the body.
Dr. Robert Isaacson, NRC Panel Member: One of the most interesting things in the report is the diversity of the number of organs that are being affected by the fluoride beyond either the teeth or the bones.

Dr. Kathleen Thiessen, Risk Assessment Scientist: We do need to get away from looking only at fluoride in connection with teeth. We need to be considering its effect on a whole bunch of other systems in the body, on people’s general health in a whole lot of respects.

SHOULD INFANTS DRINK FLUORIDATED WATER?

Dr. Robert Carton, FMR President, EPA Union: I think the ADA’s recent statement forewarning against adding fluoridated water to baby formula is I think a watershed decision.

Dr Paul Connett, Environmental Chemist: The American Dental Association has finally done what it should have done years ago and that is to tell parents not to use fluoridated tap water to make up baby formula.

Dr. Bill Osmunson, Dentist: The dental association recommends that we not have fluoridated water be used for making infant formula or for infants to drink.
Dr Paul Connett, Environmental Chemist: One of the messages that I think is extraordinary in this issue is that the level of fluoride in mother’s milk is so extremely low. It’s 0.004 parts per million which is 250 times less than we put in drinking water.

Dr. Bill Osmunson, Dentist: There’ve been a couple of men who’ve said well maybe mothers’ milk is flawed but most scientists don’t go that route. They say that mothers’ milk seems to be the best we have the best we know of, so if it’s low in fluoride maybe that’s what we should have for infants is low fluoride.

Dr. Vyvyan Howard, Fetal Patho-Toxicologist: Nature has devised a system for keeping fluoride away from the infant and we’re circumventing that by putting fluoride into drinking water and I think there are consequences.

Dr Paul Connett, Environmental Chemist: I think parents should know that fluoride is an extremely active chemical when it gets into our body. It can interfere with the pineal gland. It can interfere with the thyroid gland. The thyroid gland and the pineal gland are both intimately involved with brain development, mental development.

Dr. William Hirzy, Vice President, EPA Union: A real concern with young kids especially with new born infants is that the blood brain barrier’s not fully developed at that point and when children are drinking a formula made with fluoridated drinking water they’re getting a huge inappropriate dose of fluoride in the developing brain. This may be part of the reason for instance of the depression of IQ that we’ve seen in these Chinese studies.

Dr Phyllis Mullenix, Pharmacologist, Toxicologist: You do not want to create a fluoride exposure during a period of brain vulnerability.

Dr Paul Connett, Environmental Chemist: All of these things are indicators, serious indicators that you shouldn’t expose young babies to fluoride and of course that’s what exactly happens when you put fluoride in the water.

Brent Foster, Oregon Sierra Club: How are low income kids or low income families supposed to avoid giving their kids fluoridated water?

Dr Phyllis Mullenix, Pharmacologist, Toxicologist; They can’t afford to avoid it. They can’t avoid to seek sources of drinking water that has no fluoride in it.

Dr. Kathleen Thiessen, Risk Assessment Scientist: They think that the low income communities could be a high risk for adverse effects from fluoride exposure from water fluoridation.

FLUORIDE AND THE BRAIN

Dr. Robert Isaacson, NRC Panel Member: As far as I can see there is no doubt that that the intake of fluoridated water is going to interrupt basic functions of nerve cells in the brain.
Dr. Kathleen Thiessen, Risk Assessment Scientist: The RAS committee did review the available information on fluoride effects on the brain, on neurological function and we concluded that there does seem to be evidence for some effects. There needs to be more study in several areas. There certainly seem to be effects on the developing brain but there may also be effects on the brain in older individuals as well.

Dr Phyllis Mullenix, Pharmacologist, Toxicologist: The research on the brain since our study was published has absolutely confirmed what we predicted and what we recorded in 1995.

Dr Paul Connett, Environmental Chemist: There are now thirty animal studies which indicate that fluoride could damage the brain and this comes on top on a number of studies from China which indicates that fluoride lowers IQ in children.

Dr. Vyvyan Howard, Fetal Patho-Toxicologist: I mean there’s lots of epidemiological evidence now that for example it might affect the intelligence of the child, coming out of China and that’s been reviewed by the national Academy of Sciences. They say that you can’t be absolutely certain about it but it’s quite a strong indication they need further research.

Dr Paul Connett, Environmental Chemist: In my view fluoride today, as far as intelligence and the brain is concerned, is where lead was in the early seventies. In the early seventies scientists knew that high levels of lead could cause brain damage in children and other health effects. But they felt that subclinical levels of lead were OK. I think the same thing is happening now with fluoride. That it’s only a function of getting more and more sensitive tests to show that even lower levels of fluoride can cause lowering of IQ and other subtle effects.
Dr. Vyvyan Howard, Fetal Patho-Toxicologist: And while these bits of further research are going on to elucidate what the absolute truth is, we should be taking a more precautionary stance and saying OK for the time being we don’t fluoridate.

FLUORIDE AND THE THYROID GLAND

Dr Phyllis Mullenix, Pharmacologist, Toxicologist: A concern about fluoride and effect on the thyroid is multiple.
Dr. William Hirzy, Vice President, EPA Union: Fluoride was used to suppress hyper active thyroid especially in Europe back in the 1940s and 50s and the doses that were used to suppress thyroid activity are in the range people are getting in the US from this vast over exposure to fluoride.Dr. Kathleen Thiessen, Risk Assessment Scientist: There is a consistent body of literature that indicates that thyroid exposure does reduce thyroid function in humans and experimental animals. And that the exposure in humans associated with these effects, are in the range of exposures that are expected with people who drink fluoridated water.

Dr. Robert Isaacson, NRC Panel Member: A large percentage of the population in the United States does have some problem with the thyroid gland.

Dr. William Hirzy, Vice President, EPA Union: The large number of people whose hypothyroid – under active thyroid - now may very well be related to the fact that there’s so much fluoride in the environment.

Dr. Robert Isaacson, NRC Panel Member: The ingestion of fluoride does affect the actions of the thyroid gland
Dr Phyllis Mullenix, Pharmacologist, Toxicologist: A hyperthyroid individual should definitely be concerned about drinking fluoridated water because it would take a very serious clinical condition and it could make it even worse.

Dr. Kathleen Thiessen, Risk Assessment Scientist: The effects of hypothyroidism, even probably borderline hypothyroidism are things like depression, lethargy, when a person just doesn’t feel like getting up and doing anything. There are obviously a lot of things that can cause that but low thyroid function is among them and low thyroid function is a contributor to depression in perhaps many people. Several lines of information indicate fluoride does have an effect on the thyroid gland.

FLUORIDE AND BONE STRENGTH

Dr Phyllis Mullenix, Pharmacologist, Toxicologist: We have several studies as a matter of fact in the United States that have shown that fluoride can increase bone fracture rates.

Dr. William Hirzy, Vice President, EPA Union: A number of studies in prestigious journals such as the Journal of the American Medical Association that show increased risk of bone fracture based on the amount of fluoride a person consumes, in consuming it in the level that people get from fluoridated drinking water.

Dr. Harvey Limeback, Environmental Working Dentist: We do know from animal studies that the strength of the bone actually starts to decline, the more fluoride you have in the bone. The fluoride makes the bone more brittle.

Dr. Kathleen Thiessen, Risk Assessment Scientist: A sufficient accumulation of fluoride in the bone seems to make them weaker. It makes them more dense on X ray film but this is associated with a more brittle structure.

Dr. Harvey Limeback, Environmental Working Dentist: Of course we’re concerned with hip fractures because that’s a huge cost to the health care system.

Dr. Kathleen Thiessen, Risk Assessment Scientist: Hip fractures in the elderly in all too many cases means that that person is not going to walk again or will even die.

FLUORIDE AND ARTHRITIS

Dr. Harvey Limeback, Environmental Working Dentist: It’s well known in the endemic fluorosis areas that the first sign of skeletal fluorosis is aching joints.
Dr. Kathleen Thiessen, Risk Assessment Scientist: The early (symptoms) of skeletal fluorosis are associated with bone and joint pain.

Dr. Robert Isaacson, NRC Panel Member: Fluoride causes symptoms identical to arthritis.

Dr Phyllis Mullenix, Pharmacologist, Toxicologist: You cannot distinguish the fluorosis or early fluoride poisoning from rheumatoid or osteoarthritis. It’s very much the same.

Dr. Harvey Limeback, Environmental Working Dentist: Nobody to my knowledge has yet looked carefully at fluoridated cities or fluoridated populations and looked at the symptoms or arthritis to determine whether or not fluoride is contributing to this endemic or possibly epidemic of arthritis that we have in North America.

Dr Paul Connett, Environmental Chemist: I think there’s every reason to be concerned that today fluoride is one of the factors contributing to the epidemic of arthritis in this country. According to the CDC one in three Americans have some form of arthritis. That’s 68 million Americans.

Dr. Kathleen Thiessen, Risk Assessment Scientist: Supposedly the fluoride exposures in this country are not usually high enough to get to skeletal fluorosis. But again that’s an area that’s not been studied too well. I think it’s likely – it’s not a given – but I think it’s likely that a lot of early stage skeletal fluorosis does show up as joint and bone pain but it’s never recognised as being skeletal fluorosis.

Dr Phyllis Mullenix: Pharmacologist, Toxicologist: If I was an arthritic individual, I would be eliminating every possible source of fluoride exposure that I could think of. Early cases of rheumatoid arthritis may be fluorosis.

WHERE DO THE FLUORIDE CHEMICALS COME FROM?

Dr Paul Connett, Environmental Chemist: If you ask most dentists, ask them what they’re putting in the water, most dentists would say sodium fluoride. Pharmaceutical sodium fluoride. The same stuff that is in toothpaste.

Dr. Robert Isaacson, NRC Panel Member: They have absolutely no idea that in nine out of ten cases it’s hydrofluorosilicic acid and hydrofluorosilicic acid is a waste phosphate for the phosphate industry.

Dr Paul Connett, Environmental Chemist: This has come about because for maybe a hundred years, the phosphate industry put out two very very poisonous gases into the environment – hydrogen fluoride and silicon-tetrafluoride. Eventually they were required to capture those and they did it with a wet spray – water – and that water converts these two very toxic gases into hexafluorosilicic acid. And it’s this scrubbing liquor that is about 25% strong that’s put into tanker trucks, driven around the country and added to our drinking water.

Dr. William Hirzy, Vice President, EPA Union: If this stuff blows out the stack it’s an air pollutant, if goes directly into the water supply if they take that scrubber liquor and dump it into the local river it’s a water pollutant, but if they put it into a tank wagon and sell it to someone, a water authority, like magic, it’s not a pollutant and they can take that then to your drinking water supply, not discharge it into the river they discharge it directly into your drinking water supply. Slowly bleed it in and it’s magic! It’s no longer a toxic pollutant. It’s now able to be called a product.

Dr. Robert Carton, FMR President, EPA Union: It’s never purified. It’s not a pharmaceutical grade compound. It’s a mixture of whatever collects in the stack gases. It contains lots of contaminants, a lot of heavy metals.

Brent Foster, Oregon Sierra Club: When you’re talking about adding fluoride to drinking water, you’re not just talking about adding fluoridation chemicals. You’re talking about adding all of the industrial waste byproducts that come along with it. In Oregon where we’ve got 135 communities that already exceed the drinking water standards for arsenic, the idea of adding any more arsenic to drinking water, even if it’s a small amount doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Brent Foster, Oregon Sierra Club: When you’re talking about adding fluoride to drinking I find very few people who with an open mind read through the science, understand the significance of the questions and the direction that all of the new science is pointing in terms of the risks of fluoride who still go on to say we ought to put this in everyone’s drinking water.

Dr Phyllis Mullenix, Pharmacologist, Toxicologist: We have better ways of improving dental health today than using fluoridation.And let’s be sensible about it.

Dr. Tim Kropp, Environmental Working Dentist: It doesn’t work systemically. It works topically.
Dr Paul Connett, Environmental Chemist: It’s unethical it’s unnecessary, it’s dangerous.

Dr. Arvid Carlsson, Nobel Laureate in Medicine: I mean this is so obvious. It’s really very far fetched. You have the toothpaste which are available for you. Why drink the stuff?
 

This is an extract from an article by Mark Diesendorf and Phillip Sutton published in The Ecologist, Vol 16, No 6, 1986

Fluoride is promoted as a kind of "magic bullet" which is supposed to prevent tooth decay harmlessly whatever junk food children may eat. Clearly the promotion of fluoridation and other fluoride products assists the manufacturers of foods containing large amounts of sugar and other refined carbohydrates to prosper.

One of the principal fluoridation-promoting bodies in Australia, the Dental Health Education and Research Foundation (DHERF), is associated with the University of Sydney. The 1979 Annual Report of the DHERF contained a list of financial donors, the "Honour role of contributors". These included the Coca Cola Export Corporation, the Wrigley Co., the Australian Council of Soft Drink Manufacturers, the Colonial Sugar Refining Co., Arnotts Biscuits, Cadbury Schweppes, Kelloggs and Scanlens Sweets.

From the DHERF's total expenditure of $199,000 (Australian dollars) in 1979, $43,000 was explicitly designated for "Fluoridation promotion". Out of $97,000 designated for "Research and educational programmes" and "Publications and films" a large part was also devoted to fluoridation. The promotion of good nutrition including the avoidance of sugary foods, appears to play a very minor role in DHERF's educational and research programmes. Yet it is just these foods, not a so-called "fluoride deficiency", which comprise the principal cause of tooth decay.

Another likely beneficiary of the public health image of fluoride is the aluminium industry, which funded some of the early American research on the alleged relationship between tooth decay and the natural levels of fluoride in town water supplies. Subsequently the industry advertised its fluoride for use in water fluoridation programmes in the USA. However, the indirect financial gains to the industry from fluoridation may be considerably greater than those from selling the fluoride. Indeed, it is only in the past six years or so that discussion of fluoride pollution from aluminium smelters has started to become "respectable" in Australia.

Not that this is a deliberate conspiracy between dentists and big business. Most people have the best of motives, and there is no reason to question that bodies such as the DHERF and their donors wish to improve children's teeth. It is sufficient to identify the links between elite dental researchers on one hand and the sugary food and aluminium industries on the other, and to point out that the dental researchers may be in a position of inadvertent conflict of interest. The existence of innocent participants does not weaken the hypothesis that the primary pressure for fluoridation originates from the sugary food and aluminium industries.

Dentists and to a lesser extent doctors and health administrators play the role of unwitting "cadres" who perform both the research and the promotional campaigns for fluoridation. These activities are funded in part from the additional profits which fluoridation brings to the primary pressure groups.

This is an extract from Dan Fagan's article in Scientific American Magazine, Jan 2008, pp 74-81 (thanks to www.baff.org.au - Barwon Freedom from Fluoridation group)

Full article available at Scientific American website 

KEY CONCEPTS

• Researchers are intensifying their scrutiny of fluoride, which is added to most public water systems in the U.S. Some recent studies suggest that overconsumption of fluoride can raise the risks of disorders affecting teeth, bones, the brain and the thyroid gland.

• A 2006 report by a committee of the National Research Council recommended that the federal government lower its current limit for fluoride in drinking water because of health risks to both children and adults

Page 75: Most fluoridated water contains much less fluoride than the EPA limit, but the situation is worrisome because there is so much uncertainty over how much additional fluoride we ingest from food, beverages and dental products. What is more, the NRC panel noted that fluoride may also trigger more serious health problems, including bone cancer and damage to the brain and thyroid gland. Although these effects are still unproved, the panel argued that they deserve further study.

Page 75: Fluoride is in many foods, beverages and dental products. The ubiquity of the cavity-fighting chemical can result in overconsumption, particularly among young children.

Page 78: Scientific attitudes toward fluoridation may be starting to shift in the country where the practice began.

Page 79: But enamel fluorosis, except in the severest cases, has no health impact beyond lowered self-esteem: the tooth marks are unattractive and do not go away (although there are masking treatments). The much more important question is whether fluoride’s effects extend beyond altering the biochemistry of tooth enamel formation. Says longtime fluoride researcher Pamela DenBesten of the University of California, San Francisco, School of Dentistry: “We certainly can see that fluoride impacts the way proteins interact with mineralized tissue, so what effect is it having elsewhere at the cellular level? Fluoride is very powerful, and it needs to be treated respectfully.”

Page 80: Clashes over the possible neurological effects of fluoride have been just as intense. Phyllis Mullenix, then at the Forsyth Institute in Boston , set off a firestorm in the early 1990s when she reported that experiments on lab rats showed that sodium fluoride can accumulate in brain tissue and affect animal behavior. Prenatal exposures, she reported, correlated with hyperactivity in young rats, especially males, whereas exposures after birth had the opposite effect, turning female rats into what Mullenix later described as “couch potatoes.”

Although her research was eventually published in Neurotoxicology and Teratology, it was attacked by other scientists who said that her methodology was flawed and that she had used unrealistically high dosages. Since then, however, a series of epidemiological studies in China have associated high fluoride exposures with lower IQ, and research has also suggested a possible mechanism: the formation of aluminum fluoride complexes—small inorganic molecules that mimic the structure of phosphates and thus influence enzyme activity in the brain. There is also some evidence that the silicofluorides used in water fluoridation may enhance the uptake of lead into the brain.

Page 80: The NRC committee concluded that fluoride can subtly alter endocrine function, especially in the thyroid—the gland that produces hormones regulating growth and metabolism. Although researchers do not know how fluoride consumption can influence the thyroid, the effects appear to be strongly influenced by diet and genetics. Says John Doull, professor emeritus of pharmacology and toxicology at the University of Kansas Medical Center, who chaired the NRC committee: “The thyroid changes do worry me. There are some things there that need to be explored.”

Page 80-81: “What the committee found is that we’ve gone with the status quo regarding fluoride for many years—for too long, really—and now we need to take a fresh look,” Doull says. “In the scientific community, people tend to think this is settled. I mean, when the U.S. surgeon general comes out and says this is one of the 10 greatest achievements of the 20th century, that’s a hard hurdle to get over. But when we looked at the studies that have been done, we found that many of these questions are unsettled and we have much less information than we should, considering how long this [fluoridation] has been going on. I think that’s why fluoridation is still being challenged so many years after it began. In the face of ignorance, controversy is rampant.”

Page 81: Opponents of fluoridation, meanwhile, have been emboldened by the NRC report. “What the committee did was very, very important, because it’s the first time a truly balanced panel has looked at this and raised important questions,” says Paul Connett, a chemistry professor at St. Lawrence University and the executive director of the Fluoride Action Network, one of the most active antifluoridation groups world-wide. “I absolutely believe it’s a scientific turning point because now everything’s on the table. Fluoride is the most consumed drug in the U.S. , and it’s time we talked about it.”

Page 80: A FLUORIDE DIET

The optimal range for daily intake of fluoride—the level that maximizes protection against tooth decay but minimizes other risks— is generally considered to be 0.05 to 0.07 milligram for each kilogram of body weight. Consuming foods and beverages with large amounts of fluoride can put a diet above this range. [The article includes a list of foods and beverages with their fluoride content in parts per million, which is specific to the USA and may differ from Australian dietary fluoride levels]

This is an extract from a letter written by Dr EH Bronner, a chemist and nephew of Albert Einstein who was a prisoner of war during World War II, printed in The Catholic Mirror, Springfiled, MA, January 1952

"As a research chemist of established standing, I built within the past 22 years, 3 American chemical plants and licensed 6 of my 53 patents. Based on my years of practical experience in the health-food and chemical field, let me warn: fluoridation of drinking water is criminal insanity, sure national suicide. Don't do it.

Even in small quantities, sodium fluoride is a deadly poison to which no effective antidote has been found. Every exterminator knows that it is the most efficient rat-killer.... Sodium fluoride is entirely different from organic calcium-fluoro-phosphate needed by our bodies and provided by nature, in God's great providence and love, to build and strengthen our bones and our teeth. This organic calcium-fluoro-phosphate, derived from proper foods, is an edible organic salt, insoluble in water and assimilable by the human body, whereas the non-organic sodium fluoride used in fluoridating water is instant poison to the body and fully water soluble. The body refuses to assimilate it.

Careful, bonafide laboratory experimentation by conscientious, patriotic research chemists, and actual medical experience, have both revealed that instead of preserving or promoting 'dental health,' fluoridated drinking water destroys teeth, before adulthood and after, by the destructive mottling and other pathological conditions it actually causes in them, and also creates many other very grave pathological conditions in the internal organisms of bodies consuming it.  How can it be called a "health" plan? What's behind it?

That any so-called "doctors" would persuade a civilized nation to add voluntarily a deadly poison to its drinking water systems is unbelievable. It is the height of criminal insanity.

I am the Head of Preventive Dentistry at the University of Toronto in Toronto Canada, a professor with a PhD in Biochemistry and a practicing dentist who has done years of funded research in tooth formation, bone and fluoride. I was one of the 12 scientists who served on the National Academy of Sciences panel that issued the 2006 report, "Fluoride in Drinking Water: A Scientific Review of the EPA's Standards.

I would like to outline my arguments that fluoridation is an ineffective and harmful public health policy.

1. Fluoridation is no longer effective.

Fluoride in water has the effect of delaying tooth eruption and, therefore, simply delays dental decay (Komarek et al, 2005, Biostatistics 6:145-55). The studies that water fluoridation work are over 25 years old and were carried out before the widespread use of fluoridated toothpaste. There are numerous modern studies to show that there no longer is a difference in dental decay rates between fluoridated and non-fluoridated areas, the most recent one in Australia (Armfield & Spencer, 2004 Community Dental Oral Epidemiology. 32:283-96). Recent water fluoridation cessation studies show that dental fluorosis (a mottling of the enamel caused by fluoride) declines but there is no corresponding increase in dental decay (e.g. Maupome et al 2001, Community Dental Oral Epidemiology 29: 37-47).

Public health services will claim there is still a dental decay crisis. With the national average in Europe of only two decayed teeth per child (World Health Organization data), down from more than 15 decayed teeth in the 1940s and 1950s before fluoridated toothpaste, as much as half of all children grow up not having a single filling. This remarkable success has been achieved in most European countries without fluoridation.

The "crisis" of dental decay often mentioned is the result, to a major extent, of sugar abuse, especially soda pop. A 2005 report by Jacobsen of the Center for Science in the Public Interest said that U.S. children consume 40 to 44 percent of their daily refined sugar in the form of soft drinks. Since most soft drinks are themselves fluoridated, the small amount of fluoride is obviously not helping.

The families of these children with rampant dental decay need professional assistance. Are they getting it? Children who grow up in low-income families make poor dietary choices, and cannot afford dental care. Untreated dental decay and lack of professional intervention result in more dental decay. The York review was unable to show that fluoridation benefited poor people.

Similarly, early dental decay in nursing infants (baby bottle syndrome) cannot be prevented with water fluoridation. The majority of dentists in the U.S. do not accept Medicaid patients because they lose money treating these patients. I would think the same is true for dentists in Europe. Dentists support fluoridation programs because it absolves them of their responsibility to provide assistance to those who cannot afford dental treatment. Even cities where water fluoridation has been in effect for years are reporting similar dental "crises."

Public health officials responsible for community programs are misleading the public by stating that ingesting fluoride "makes the teeth stronger." Fluoride is not an essential nutrient. It does not make developing teeth better prepared to resist dental decay before they erupt into the oral environment. The small benefit that fluoridated water might still have on teeth (in the absence of fluoridated toothpaste use) is the result of "topical" exposure while the teeth are rebuilding from acid challenges brought on by daily sugar and starch exposure (Limeback 1999, Community Dental Oral Epidemiology 27: 62-71), and this has now been recognized by the Centers for Disease Control.

2. Fluoridation is the main cause of dental fluorosis.

Fluoride doses by the end user can't be controlled when only one concentration of fluoride (1 parts per million) is available in the drinking water. Babies and toddlers get too much fluoride when tap water is used to make formula (Brothwell & Limeback, 2003 Journal of Human Lactation 19: 386-90). Since the majority of daily fluoride comes from the drinking water in fluoridated areas, the risk for dental fluorosis greatly increases (National Academy of Sciences: Toxicological Risk of Fluoride in Drinking Water, 2006). The American Dental Association and the Dental Forum in Ireland has admitted that fluoridated tap water should not be used to reconstitute infant formula.

We have tripled our exposure to fluoride since fluoridation was conceived in the 1940s. This has lead to every third child with dental fluorosis (CDC, 2005). Fluorosis is not just a cosmetic effect. The more severe forms are associated with an increase in dental decay (NAS: Toxicological Risk of Fluoride in Drinking Water, 2006) and the psychological impact on children is a negative one. Most children with moderate and severe dental fluorosis seek extensive restorative work costing thousands of dollars. Dental fluorosis can be reduced by turning off the fluoridation taps without affecting dental decay rates (Burt et al 2000 Journal of Dental Research 79(2):761-9).

3. Chemicals that are used in fluoridation have not been tested for safety.

All the animal cancer studies were done on pharmaceutical-grade sodium fluoride. There is more than enough evidence to show that even this fluoride has the potential to promote cancer. Some communities use sodium fluoride in their drinking water, but even that chemical is not the same fluoride added to toothpaste. Most cities instead use hydrofluorosilicic acid (or its salt). H2SiF6 is concentrated directly from the smokestack scrubbers during the production of phosphate fertilizer, shipped to water treatment plants and trickled directly into the drinking water. It is industrial grade fluoride contaminated with trace amounts of heavy metals such as lead, arsenic and radium, which are harmful to humans at the levels that are being added to fluoridate the drinking water.

In addition, using hydrofluorosilicic acid instead of industrial grade sodium fluoride has an added risk of increasing lead accumulation in children (Masters et al 2000, Neurotoxicology. 21(6): 1091- 1099), probably from the lead found in the pipes of old houses. This could not be ruled out by the CDC in their recent study (Macek et al 2006, Environmental Health Perspectives 114:130-134).

4. There are serious health risks from water fluoridation.

Cancer: Osteosarcoma (bone cancer) has recently been identified as a risk in young boys in a recently published Harvard study (Bassin, Cancer Causes and Control, 2006). The author of this study, Dr. Elise Bassin, acknowledges that perhaps it is the use of these untested and contaminated fluorosilicates mentioned above that caused the over 500% increase risk of bone cancer.

Bone fracture: Drinking on average 1 liter/day of naturally fluoridated water at 4 parts per million increases your risk for bone pain and bone fractures (National Academy of Sciences: Toxicological Risk of Fluoride in Drinking Water, 2006). Since fluoride accumulates in bone, the same risk occurs in people who drink 4 liters/day of artificially fluoridated water at 1 part per million, or in people with renal disease. Additionally, Brits are known for their tea drinking and since tea itself contains fluoride, using fluoridated tap water puts many heavy tea drinkers dangerously close to threshold for bone fracture. Fluoridation studies have never properly shown that fluoride is safe in individuals who cannot control their dose, or in patients who retain too much fluoride.

Adverse thyroid function: The recent National Academy of Sciences report (NAS: Toxicological Risk of Fluoride in Drinking Water, 2006) outlines in great detail the detrimental effect that fluoride has on the endocrine system, especially the thyroid. Fluoridation should be halted on the basis that endocrine function in the U.S. has never been studied in relation to total fluoride intake.

Adverse neurological effects: In addition to the added accumulation of lead (a known neurotoxin) in children living in fluoridated cities, fluoride itself is a known neurotoxin. We are only now starting to understand how fluoride affects the brain. Several recent studies suggest that fluoride in drinking water lowers IQ (NAS, 2006), we need to study this more in depth.

In my opinion, the evidence that fluoridation is more harmful than beneficial is now overwhelming and policy makers who avoid thoroughly reviewing recent data before introducing new fluoridation schemes do so at risk of future litigation.