The Plain Truth has featured the negative and dangerous impacts of Fluoride on children's brain development here but let's dig even deeper...
By Rebekah Edwards of draxe.com
There are two sides to any story, and that is definitely true in the case of fluoride. Since being introduced into the public water supplies of much of the U.S. (and several other countries) in the 1960s, a consistent debate has existed on whether or not fluoride is truly safe as a water additive or dental health product.
It’s more complex than you might believe at first. On the one side, many public health organizations hail fluoride as a near-miracle for dental health and insist there are no questions or contrary pieces of evidence whatsoever.
For example, the Centers of Disease Control (CDC) states on their website, “Because of its contribution to the large decline in cavities in the United States since the 1960s, CDC named community water fluoridation one of 10 great public health achievements of the 20th century.” (1) The American Dental Association and American Academy of Pediatrics agree, and have since the beginning of public water fluoridation in the mid 1900s. (2, 3, 4)
Pretty convincing, right?
Unfortunately, the answer isn’t that simple.
The controversy over fluoride in water has been the main point of contention for anti-fluoridationists for the last several decades, since it was introduced widely in 1960. (5) Is it just kooks and conspiracy theorists that are continuing the pointless complaining about a public health victory?
Quite the opposite proves to be true after a bit of digging. A growing body of research has existed since before fluoride was ever approved for dental use finding it has the ability to cause long-lasting negative health effects in various bodily systems. (6)
What Is Fluoride?
“Fluoride” refers to any compound containing a fluorine ion. Sporting a chemical symbol of “F” and an atomic number of 9, fluorine is one of the well-recognized elements on the periodic table. As a pure gas, fluorine is “the most reactive and electronegative of all the elements.” It has extremely damaging effects to any living organism with which it comes into contact. (7)
In nature, calcium fluoride (CaF2) is found in soil and water. Spring water in areas without industries that regularly use fluoride generally contains about .01-.03 ppm (parts per million, also known as milligrams per liter or mg/L) of calcium fluoride naturally, while seawater is closer to 1.3 ppm. (8) These amounts vary greatly depending on location — in some parts of the world, calcium fluoride is found up to 10–20 ppm in water supplies, which is universally recognized as an unsafe ingestible amount of the compound.
Despite the insistence of various organizations to tell the public that this same compound is what’s added to their drinking water, this isn’t actually true. Calcium fluoride is not well-absorbed into the body, whereas sodium fluoride (NaF) is. This chemical compound does not occur in nature and was generally considered industrial toxic waste until 1950, when it was announced as a new dental health initiative.
1945 marked the start of studies in several cities across the U.S. to compare the prevalence of cavities (dental caries) between children and adults drinking fluoridated or unfluoridated water. According to the CDC, dental caries were reduced 50–70 percent in fluoridated communities during the 13–15 years of these “studies.” (9)
However, no data is available for the amount of cavity reduction experienced by the “control” communities in these experiments. As dental health has improved steadily in both fluoridated and unfluoridated communities of the U.S., this data would be very worthwhile but, unfortunately, does not exist or is not readily available to the public. (10)
As of 2014, about 74.4 percent of people in the U.S. with community water systems were provided with fluoridated water. (11) This is a 0.2 drop in the previous 2012 statistic, resulting partly from community efforts of citizens urging their leaders to remove fluoride from public drinking water.
Unlike you may expect, though, the fluoride used in your drinking water is not calcium fluoride nor sodium fluoride. Now, in 90 percent of our fluoridated water, it’s a compound known as hydrofluorosilicic acid (HFS or FSA). HFS is a by-product of the process used to create phosphate fertilizers that used to be considered toxic waste and is now (more than likely) an additive in your family’s water. (12)
In a petition submitted in 2013 by a former EPA scientist, J. William Hirzy, Ph.D., and colleagues requested the EPA to discontinue the use of HFS in public water due to the proven adverse effects it may have on human health, including issues via the presence of arsenic. (13)
That’s correct: The additive used to improve your dental health also contains arsenic, which, incidentally, is allowed in measures of .010 ppm in water by EPA standards, although the MCLG (maximum contaminant level goal) is zero, due to arsenic’s cancer-causing impact. (14, 15)
Not only does hydrofluorosilicic acid contain arsenic, it also leaches lead from piping at much greater rates than sodium fluoride, although both compounds have this effect. (16) Lead crosses the blood-brain barrier — as well as to unborn children in pregnant mothers — and has no known safe level of contamination that won’t cause harmful effects, such as cancer. (17)
Is fluoride safe for you?
According to the CDC and other governmental bodies, there is only one known cosmetic issue that occurs from too much fluoride in water or from other sources: fluorosis (which I’ll discuss a little later). (18) In another section of the CDC’s website, they provide a toxicology guide for fluorines, fluoride and hydrogen fluoride. This guide sets a “minimal risk level” of fluoride at .05 mg/kg/day for chronic exposure, which defines the amount of fluoride that would cause issues when chronically ingested. (19) That figure can be translated to .11 milligrams per pound of weight per day.
Doing the math: This means that a 160-pound person drinking an optimal amount of water (80 ounces) from a fluoridated source would ingest 1.66 milligrams of fluoride from that water alone. The CDC’s given “minimal risk level” of .11 mg/lb/day (.05 mg/kg/day) means that same person should not consistently consume 3.65 milligrams of fluoride each day, or may suffer adverse effects.
Not only is that far too close a margin, in my opinion, but this metric doesn’t consider the additional fluoride from toothpaste, mouthwash, food and drinks that the same person would also regularly ingest. It also is considering a full-grown adult who understands how to not swallow toothpaste, which can’t always be said for a small child brushing his teeth with fluoridated toothpaste with 1,000 times the fluoride as tap water per volume.
The adverse effects this includes should just be that one “cosmetic” problem, though, right? Not quite — the CDC has finally included a prevalence of “increased bone fractures in the elderly” related to drinking fluoridated water after they could no longer avoid the evidence. This is not listed on the community fluoridation material they distribute.
A growing number of professionals have doubted the safety of water fluoridation in its current state for many decades. This problem exists, in part, because the amount of long-term, high-quality, unbiased research available is limited to non-existent.
For example, the NHS Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (a British governmental body) looked at the evidence about the carcinogenic potential of fluoride. Their results were tentative at best, and they stated at the end of their compilation that, “Given the level of interest surrounding the issue of public water fluoridation, it is surprising to find that little high quality research has been undertaken.” (20)
In 2006, the National Research Council conducted a review entitled “Fluoride in Drinking Water: A Scientific Review of EPA’s Standards.” Their research led them to a few conclusions about the safety of fluoride according to available data at that time, such as: (21)
- Athletes, outdoor workers and people with certain medical conditions such as diabetes insipidus and poor kidney function are more sensitive to water’s fluoride content.
- Infants and children are daily exposed to fluoride three to four times more than adults on a body weight comparison basis.
- Even with the “insufficient” data regarding fluoride’s impact on the central nervous system, they felt the results of the existing warranted more investigation.
- They acknowledged effects to the endocrine system caused by fluoride, although they referred to them as “subclinical” and not “adverse,” but agree that they deserve more research, particularly because these issues may impact the sexual development of children consuming fluoride within the US’s current guidelines.
- They point out the major gaps in the scientific evidence regarding fluoride and make several recommendations for future study focus.
Another expert who spoke out about concerns of the safety of fluoride is John Colquhoun, a dentist in New Zealand who was appointed to Principal Dental Officer of Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city. Dr. Colquhoun, once passionately pro-fluoridation, re-examined the facts and studies available on fluoridation and wrote an explanation of his staunchly anti-fluoridation stance in Perspectives in Biology and Medicine in 1997.
He explains that this dedication to fluoride as the savior of dental health, particularly for low-income families who do not receive regular dental care, is based, in his opinion, on a determination to “bend over backwards to explain away new evidence,” specifically evidence opposing the common view. Colquhoun claims that flawed studies contributed to this issue greatly, but that when he was presented with the evidence of the decline of tooth decay in totally non-fluoridated communities, his conclusion was that fluoride actually does far more harm (to the teeth and other parts of the body) than it ever does good. (23, 24)
As with most things, this view is opposed by many. Herschel S. Horowitz, DDS, MPH, a former Chief of the Community Programs Section of the National Institute of Dental Research, wrote a rebuttal to John Colquhoun’s letter. He concluded that the letter contained poor references to junk science and remains convinced that community water fluoridation is totally safe. (25)
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