Fluoride Follies

[Guest guest]

http://www.lewrockwell.com/miller/miller17.html

 

 

 

Fluoride Follies

 

by Donald W. Miller, Jr., MD

 

 

The federal government's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

(CDC) and the American Dental Association (ADA) are holding a

symposium in Chicago this week titled: " National Fluoridation

Symposium 2005: Celebrating 60 Years of Water Fluoridation " (July

13–16). The CDC ranks fluoridation of community drinking water as one

of the ten most significant public health achievements of the 20th

century.

 

No speaker at this symposium will dare question the safety or efficacy

of fluoride. That is now a given and has become dogma. But like in

1968 when protests against the Vietnam War were held in the Windy City

outside the Democratic National Convention, this week protesters have

assembled in Chicago to fight fluoridation.

 

Fluoridation of community drinking water began in Grand Rapids,

Michigan on January 12, 1945. It was the brainchild of two people who

worked for Andrew W. Mellon, founder of the Aluminum Company of

America (ALCOA), Drs. H. Trendley Dean and Gerald J. Cox. Mellon was

US Treasury Secretary, which made him (at that time, in 1930) head of

the Public Health Service (PHS). He had Dean, a researcher at the PHS,

study the effects of naturally fluoridated water on teeth. Dean

confirmed that fluoride causes mottling (discoloration) of teeth, and

he hypothesized that it also prevents cavities. Cox, a researcher at

the Mellon Institute in Pittsburgh, was urged to study the effect of

fluoride on tooth-decay in rats. Determining that it had a beneficial

effect, he proposed, in late 1939, that the US should fluoridate its

public water supply.

 

Fluorine is a halogen, like chlorine and iodine. It is the smallest

and most reactive element in the halogen family (elements with 7

electrons in their outer shell). Fluorine exists in nature attached to

other elements as the negatively charged ion fluoride, most notably to

hydrogen, calcium, sodium, aluminum, sulfur, and silicon. Sodium

fluoride, a by-product of aluminum smelting, initially was used to

fluoridate water. Silicofluorides (fluoride combined with silicon),

wastes of phosphate fertilizer production, are now used almost

exclusively for fluoridation. Fluorine is also present in compounds

called organofluorines, where fluorine atoms (not fluoride anions) are

tightly bound to carbon. Teflon (poly-tetra-fluoro-ethylene),

Gore-Tex, and many drugs, Prozac (fluoxetine), Cipro (ciprofloxacin),

and Baycol (cerivastatin) among them, are organofluorines.

 

Doctors and public health officials did not think sodium fluoride,

used commercially as a rat and bug poison, fungicide, and wood

preservative, should be put in public water. The Journal of the

American Dental Association said (in 1936), " Fluoride at the 1 ppm

[part per million] concentration is as toxic as arsenic and lead…

There is an increasing volume of evidence of the injurious effects of

fluorine, especially the chronic intoxication resulting from the

ingestion of minute amounts of fluorine over long periods of time. "

And the Journal of the American Medical Association " noted (in its

September 18, 1943 issue), " Fluorides are general protoplasmic

poisons, changing the permeability of the cell membrane by certain

enzymes. " But, as Joel Griffiths and Chris Bryson reveal in " Fluoride,

Teeth, and the Atomic Bomb, " and Bryson in his book The Fluoride

Deception, officials in the Manhattan Project persuaded health policy

makers and medical and dental leaders, in the interests of national

security, to do an about-face and join the fluoridation bandwagon.

 

Vast amounts of fluoride were required to build the atom bomb.

Fluoride combines with uranium to form the gas uranium hexafluoride,

which, when passed through a semi permeable membrane, separates

bomb-grade, fissionable uranium-235 from the much more abundant and

stable uranium-238. This done, fluoride is released into the

environment as waste. (During the Cold War millions of tons of

fluoride were used in the manufacture of bomb-grade uranium and

plutonium for nuclear weapons.) Also, large amounts of fluoride were

generated in producing aluminum required for warplanes.

 

With several instances already on record of fluoride causing damage to

crops, livestock, and people downwind from industrial plants,

government and industry, lead by officials running the Manhattan

Project, sought to put a new, friendlier face on fluoride. This would

dampen public concerns over fluoride emissions and help forestall

potentially crippling litigation. Instead of being seen as the poison

it is, people should view fluoride as a nutrient, which gives smiling

children shiny teeth, as epitomized in the jingle that calls fluoride

" nature's way to prevent tooth decay. "

 

It worked. Early epidemiological studies showed a 50 to 70 percent

reduction in dental cavities in children who drank fluoridated water.

These studies, however, were poorly designed. None were blinded, so

dentists examining children for caries would know which kind of water

they were drinking. Data gathering methods were shoddy. By today's

evidence-based medicine standards these studies do not provide

reliable evidence that fluoride does indeed prevent cavities.

 

Based on these studies and its promotion, municipalities across the

country started adding fluoride to their water supply. Within 15 years

a majority of Americans were washing their clothes, watering their

vegetable gardens, bathing with, and drinking fluoridated water.

 

On its 60th anniversary proponents still have not proved that the

hypothesis fluoride [put in public water] prevents cavities and is

perfectly safe is true. The first part of the hypothesis, at least,

has biological plausibility. Fluoride prevents cavities by combining

with calcium in dental enamel to form fluoroapetite, which increases

the resistance of teeth to acid demineralization. And fluoride

inactivates bacteria that damage teeth by interfering with their

enzymes. But biological plausibility alone is not sufficient to prove

efficacy. Epidemiological evidence is required to do that. A debate

open to well-informed opponents of fluoridation, if the CDC and ADA

ever agreed to hold one, would show that existing epidemiological

evidence does not prove that fluoride prevents cavities.

 

In evidence-based medicine, systematic reviews (meta-analyses) are

considered to be the best, most " scientific " evidence. A systematic

review of water fluoridation studies, published in the British Medical

Journal in 2000, found, as the chair of the Advisory Group that

commissioned the review puts it, " The review did not show water

fluoridation to be safe. The quality of the research was too poor to

establish with confidence whether or not there are potentially

important adverse effects in addition to the high levels of [dental]

fluorosis. " He adds, " The review team was surprised that in spite of

the large number of studies carried out over several decades there is

a dearth of reliable evidence with which to inform policy. " The case

for fluoride does not stand up to careful evidence-based scrutiny.

 

Evidence that " fluoride [put in public water] does not prevent

cavities and is not safe " (the null hypothesis) is more convincing. If

a court of law held a trial on fluoride's safety and efficacy, the

anti-fluoridationists would win. The judgment in their favor would

most likely be beyond a reasonable doubt, or at least on a more likely

than not basis. In a courtroom the pro-fluoridationists would not be

permitted to employ ad hominem attacks that focus on the character of

the opposing witness instead of the evidence, and dogmatic assertions

on the safety and efficacy of fluoride would be subject to cross

examination.

 

Proponents of fluoridation will not willingly admit they are wrong. As

Tolstoy puts it, " Most men can seldom accept even the simplest and

most obvious truth if it would oblige them to admit the falsity of

conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues,

have proudly taught to others, and have woven thread by thread into

the fabric of their lives. "

 

There are exceptions. Two prominent leaders of the pro-fluoridation

movement willingly admitted publicly (in 1997 and 2000) that they were

wrong. One was the late John Colquhoun, DDS, Principal Dental Officer

for Auckland, New Zealand and chair of that country's Fluoridation

Promotion Committee. He reviewed New Zealand's dental statistics in an

effort to convince skeptics that fluoridation was beneficial and found

that tooth decay rates were the same in fluoridated and nonfluoridated

places, which prompted him to re-examine the classic fluoridation

studies. He recanted his support for it in " Why I Changed my Mind

About Water Fluoridation " (Perspectives in Biology and Medicine

1997;41:29–44). The other is Dr. Hardy Limeback, PhD, DDS, Head of

Preventive Dentistry at University of Toronto. His reasons are given

in " Why I am Now Officially Opposed to Adding Fluoride to Drinking

Water. " Another former pro-fluoridationist that is fighting fluoride

in Canada, and elsewhere, is Richard G. Foulkes, MD, a health care

administrator and former assistant professor in the Department of

Health Care and Epidemiology at the University of British Columbia.

 

Chlorine is added to water to kill bacteria. Chlorination (begun in

1908) has eradicated typhoid fever and cholera, two water-borne

diseases that used to kill thousands of Americans each year. Chlorine

is a disinfectant. Fluoride is a medication, which the state requires

all people to consume because government officials believe it is good

for a segment of the population. The putative benefit of this

medication is for children age 5 to 12 (when enamel for their

permanent teeth is being formed). This age group drinks 0.01 percent

of the water people use.

 

This is how the CDC justifies compulsory fluoridation: " Although other

fluoride-containing products are available [e.g., toothpaste], water

fluoridation remains the more equitable and cost-effective method of

delivering fluoride to all members of most communities, regardless of

age, educational attainment, or income level. " Fluoridation,

therefore, addresses social inequalities and fosters social justice.

It provides fluoride to poor families without their having to buy

(fluoride) toothpaste and make their children brush their teeth with

it. The common good takes priority over individual freedom to choose

to not take this medication. This communitarian ethic increasingly

governs US public health policy. One of the goals of the government's

Healthy People 2010 initiative (Objective 21-9) is to " increase the

proportion of the U.S. population served by community water systems

with optimally fluoridated water [the target: 75 percent]. "

 

Murray Rothbard (in an article written in 1992) describes water

fluoridation as " ALCOA-socialism, " arising from " an alliance of three

major forces: ideological social democrats, ambitious technocratic

bureaucrats, and Big Businessmen seeking privileges from the state. "

It is a legacy of war, with its call for aluminum and enriched

uranium, and the New Deal.

 

Fluoridation is an especially destructive type of socialism because

fluoride is a poison. It is the 13th most common element and one of

the most toxic elements in the earth's crust. It is an insidious

poison that produces serious multisystem effects on a long-term basis.

 

Fluoride disrupts enzymes (by altering their hydrogen bonds) and

prevents them from doing their job of making proteins, collagen in

particular, the structural protein for bone and teeth, ligaments,

tendons, and muscles. It damages DNA repair enzymes and inhibits the

enzyme acetylcholinesterase in the brain, which is involved in

transmitting signals along nerve cells. All cells in the body depend

on enzymes. Consequently, fluoride can have widespread deleterious

effects in multiple organ systems. One researcher has uncovered 113

ailments that fluoride is said to cause.

 

The first visible sign of fluoride poisoning is dental fluorosis. It

begins as small white specks in the enamel that then turn into spots,

become confluent, and, in its most severe stage, turn brown. Dental

fluorosis of varying degree affects 20 to 80 percent of children who

grow up drinking fluoridated water. Moderate to severe changes, with

brown mottling, occurs in 3 percent of children. Dental fluorosis is

an indicator of fluoride toxicity in other parts of the body. Like in

growing teeth, fluoride accumulates in the brain. One manifestation of

" brain fluorosis " in children could be this: Researchers (in China)

have found that children living in an area where the water has high

fluoride content (4.12 ppm) have IQ scores that are 6 to 12 points

lower than children living in a low fluoride district (the difference

in IQ scores, at p <0.02, is statistically significant).

 

Fluoride has a particular affinity for calcium and thus for bone; and

it poisons bones the same way it does teeth. The average American

living in a fluoridated community now ingests 8 mg of fluoride a day.

Unlike teeth where the enamel, once formed, remains static, 10 percent

of bone tissue is broken down and replaced annually, giving fluoride

an opportunity to steadily accumulate year-after-year in bones. People

who consume 10–25 mg of fluoride a day over 10 to 20 years, or 2mg/day

over 40 years, will develop skeletal fluorosis. The first

manifestations of this disease, before there are any changes on x-ray,

are joint pains and arthritic symptoms, which are indistinguishable

from osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis; muscle weakness; chronic

fatigue; and gastrointestinal disorders. In the next stage,

osteoporosis develops and bones become more brittle and weak, making

them prone to fracture. (The third and final stage, crippling

fluorosis, occurs mainly in India where the natural fluoride content

of the water is high.)

 

There is an epidemic of arthritis, osteoporosis, hip fractures, and

chronic fatigue syndrome in the United States. Could fluoride be

causing this epidemic? It turns out that even people who live in

nonfluoridated areas consume a lot of fluoride, on average 4 mg/day.

It is in toothpaste; in fruit juices, soda pop, tea, and processed

foods; and, unfortunately, in California wines, whose grapes are

sprayed with the pesticide cyrolite (sodium aluminum fluoride).

American physicians know little or nothing about skeletal fluorosis,

and the early, arthritic stages of this disease mimic other bone and

joint diseases. It is a hypothesis worth testing.

 

Studies show that the rates of bone cancer are substantially higher in

fluoridated areas, particularly in boys. Other cancers, of the head

and neck, GI tract, pancreas, and lungs, have a 10 percent higher

incidence. Fluoride affects the thyroid gland and causes

hypothyroidism, which is also an increasingly frequent disorder in the

US. Other studies show that high levels of fluoride in drinking water

are associated with birth defects and early infant mortality.

 

Fluoride also damages the brain, both directly and indirectly. Rats

given fluoridated water at a dose of 4 ppm develop symptoms resembling

attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder. High concentrations of

fluoride accumulate in the pineal gland, which produces serotonin and

melatonin. Young girls who drink fluoridated water reach puberty six

months earlier than those who drink unfluoridated water, which is

thought to be a result of reduced melatonin production. People with

Alzheimer's disease have high levels of aluminum in their brains.

Fluoride combines with aluminum in drinking water and takes it through

the blood-brain barrier into the brain. Dr. Russell Blaylock, MD, a

neurosurgeon, spells out in chilling detail the danger fluoride poses

to one's brain and health in general in his book Health and Nutrition

Secrets that can Save Your Life (2002).

 

Try to avoid fluoride, in all its guises. It is not an element the

body needs or requires, even in trace amounts. There are no known

naturally occurring compounds of fluorine in the human body.

 

Live in a nonfluoridated community. If that is not possible, drink

distilled water or tap water passed through a filter that can remove

fluoride (a third method using an activated alumina absorbent is not

practical because of its expense). Regular activated carbon filters do

not work because the diameter of a fluoride anion (0.064 nm) is

smaller than the pore size of the filter. It requires a reverse

osmosis filter. (Living in a fluoridated area, my family uses a table

top reverse osmosis filter that we purchased online.) Distilled water

has been given a bad rap by some health writers, which is not deserved

(see " Blowing the Lid off Distilled Water Myths " ). Distillation units

are relatively inexpensive.

 

Fluoride is readily absorbed through the skin (and inhaled).

Two-thirds of the fluoride we take into our bodies using fluoridated

public water comes from bathing and wearing clothes washed in it.

Drinking fluoride-free water in a fluoridated district only reduces

fluoride intake by about a third.

 

One of the greatest public health advances in the 21st century will be

removing fluoride from public water supplies. This " important public

health measure " is a Potemkin Village – an impressive façade that

hides undesirable facts. In this village, the US Surgeon General, the

Czar, in this case, tells visiting dignitaries that " Community water

fluoridation benefits everyone, " and " There is no credible evidence

that fluoridation is harmful. " This has given fluoride a protected

pollutant status for 60 years when the stark fact is that this

substance is slowly poisoning us.

 

In addition to being contaminated with trace amounts of arsenic,

beryllium, mercury, and lead, silicofluorides (hexafluorosilicic acid

[H2SiF6] and its sodium salt hexafluorosilicate [Na2SiF6]) carry lead

through the intestine into the body. These are the compounds that,

untested, now are used to fluoridate water. Lead interferes with the

neurotransmitter dopamine, which controls impulsive and violent

behavior; and studies show that lead pollution is linked to higher

rates of violent crime. The average violent crime rate in US counties

that have lead pollution is 56 percent higher when their drinking

water is fluoridated, as reported in " A Moratorium on Silicofluoride

Usage will Save $$Millions (Fluoride 2005;38:1–5). School shootings

occur ten times more frequently in fluoridated communities, as Jay

Seavey points out in " Water Fluoridation and Crime in America

(Fluoride 2005;38:11–22).

 

Antifluoridationists weaken their case by mistakenly putting

florine-carbon organofluorines in the same category as fluoride

anions, as Joel Kauffman, a chemist, points out. The fluorine in these

compounds is not dangerous (Teflon heated continuously at 500° F does

not release any fluoride.) Policy makers will be better able to deal

with fluoridation of water alone and ban it when organic

(carbon-based) fluorine compounds are removed from consideration.

 

The day will come when fluoridation of community drinking water will

suffer the same fate as blood letting. Used for over a millennium to

treat disease, it was abandoned three centuries ago.

 

Recommended Reading:

 

* " Water Fluoridation: a Review of Recent Research and Actions, "

by Joel M. Kauffman, PhD. Published last month in the peer-reviewed

Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, this well-considered,

succinct, up-to-date review would be Exhibit A in a trial against

fluoridation. The author brought to my attention the distinction

between inorganic fluoride anion and organically carbon-bound

fluorine. (J Am Phys Surg 2005;10:38–44.)

* " Fluoridation of Water, " by Bette Hileman. Published in Chemical

and Engineering News in 1988, this " Special Report " by an associate

editor of the journal examines the fundamental issues and specifics of

fluoridation, which scientists, policy makers, and the public must

confront. It shows that the fluoride controversy is much more serious

than most people at the time, including scientists, realized. This

seminal article gives important examples of how data on fluoride's

adverse effects are withheld from the public. (August 1, 1988 C & EN, p.

26–42, with links to the article's four sidebars and to 39 letters

published in C & EN about it, including one from Surgeon General C.

Everett Koop.)

* " Fluoride: Commie Plot or Capitalistic Ploy, " by Joel Griffiths.

Originally published in Covert Action Quarterly in 1992, this article,

with a photo of Capt. Jack Ripper in Dr. Strangelove saying, " Have you

ever seen a commie drink a glass of water?, " is another classic on the

subject.

* Fluoride: Drinking Ourselves to Death? by Barry Groves (2001)

This thoroughly researched and well written book refutes, one by one,

answers the British Fluoridation Society told UK dentists to give to

(32) questions people might ask them about Fluoride – questions like

" Is fluoridated water safe? " and " Is it true that there is enough

fluoride in a tube of toothpaste to kill a small child? " (The BFS

answer to the toothpaste one is: " Used sensibly, fluoride toothpaste

presents no risks to children. " )

* " 50 Reasons to Oppose Fluoridation " by Paul Connett. There are,

indeed, 50 reasons. Written by the Executive Director of the

organization that held the protest in Chicago.

* The Fluoride Deception by Christopher Bryson (2004) A good

review of this book can be found here. The author has thoroughly

researched the subject and obtained previously unreleased documents on

the wartime politics behind fluoridation. He pulls down its façade and

lays bare this Potemkin Village.

* " A Bibliography of Scientific Literature on Fluoride. " A good

compilation of references, arranged by subject. It is 55 pages long.

 

July 15, 2005

 

Donald Miller (send him mail) is a cardiac surgeon and Professor of

Surgery at the University of Washington in Seattle and a member of

Doctors for Disaster Preparedness and writes articles on a variety of

subjects for LewRockwell.com, including bioterrorism. His web site is

www.donaldmiller.com.

 

2005 LewRockwell.com