- Water fluoridation is a peculiarly American
phenomenon. It started at a time when Asbestos lined our pipes, lead was
added to gasoline, PCBs filled our transformers and DDT was deemed so
"safe and effective" that officials felt no qualms spraying kids in
school classrooms and seated at picnic tables. One by one all these
chemicals have been banned, but fluoridation remains untouched.
-
- For over 50 years US government officials have
confidently and enthusiastically claimed that fluoridation is "safe and
effective".
-
- However, they are seldom prepared to defend the
practice in open public debate. Actually, there are so many arguments
against fluoridation that it can get overwhelming.
-
- To simplify things it helps to separate the ethical
from the scientific arguments.
-
- For those for whom ethical concerns are paramount, the
issue of fluoridation is very simple to resolve. It is simply not
ethical; we simply shouldn't be forcing medication on people without
their "informed consent". The bad news, is that ethical arguments are
not very influential in Washington, DC unless politicians are very
conscious of millions of people watching them. The good news is that the
ethical arguments are buttressed by solid common sense arguments and
scientific studies which convincingly show that fluoridation is neither
"safe and effective" nor necessary. I have summarized the arguments in
several categories:
-
- Fluoridation is UNETHICAL because:
-
- 1) It violates the individual's right to informed
consent to medication.
-
- 2) The municipality cannot control the dose of the
patient.
-
- 3) The municipality cannot track each individual's
response.
-
- 4) It ignores the fact that some people are more
vulnerable to fluoride's toxic effects than others. Some people will
suffer while others may benefit.
-
- 5) It violates the Nuremberg code for human
experimentation.
-
- As stated by the recent recipient of the Nobel Prize
for Medicine (2000), Dr. Arvid Carlsson:
-
- "I am quite convinced that water fluoridation, in a
not-too-distant future, will be consigned to medical history...Water
fluoridation goes against leading principles of pharmacotherapy, which
is progressing from a stereotyped medication - of the type 1 tablet 3
times a day - to a much more individualized therapy as regards both
dosage and selection of drugs. The addition of drugs to the drinking
water means exactly the opposite of an individualized therapy."
-
- As stated by Dr. Peter Mansfield, a physician from the
UK and advisory board member of the recent government review of
fluoridation (McDonagh et al 2000):
-
- "No physician in his right senses would prescribe for
a person he has never met, whose medical history he does not know, a
substance which is intended to create bodily change, with the advice:
'Take as much as you like, but you will take it for the rest of your
life because some children suffer from tooth decay. ' It is a
preposterous notion."
-
- Fluoridation is UNNECESSARY because:
-
- 1) Children can have perfectly good teeth without
being exposed to fluoride.
-
- 2) The promoters (CDC, 1999, 2001) admit that the
benefits are topical not systemic, so fluoridated toothpaste, which is
universally available, is a more rational approach to delivering
fluoride to the target organ (teeth) while minimizing exposure to the
rest of the body.
-
- 3) The vast majority of western Europe has rejected
water fluoridation, but has been equally successful as the US, if not
more so, in tackling tooth decay.
-
- 4) If fluoride was necessary for strong teeth one
would expect to find it in breast milk, but the level there is 0.01 ppm
, which is 100 times LESS than in fluoridated tap water (IOM,
1997).
-
- 5) Children in non-fluoridated communities are already
getting the so-called "optimal" doses from other sources (Heller et al,
1997). In fact, many are already being over-exposed to fluoride.
-
- Fluoridation is INEFFECTIVE because:
-
- 1) Major dental researchers concede that fluoride's
benefits are topical not systemic (Fejerskov 1981; Carlos 1983; CDC
1999, 2001; Limeback 1999; Locker 1999; Featherstone 2000).
-
- 2) Major dental researchers also concede that fluoride
is ineffective at preventing pit and fissure tooth decay, which is 85%
of the tooth decay experienced by children (JADA 1984; Gray 1987; White
1993; Pinkham 1999).
-
- 3) Several studies indicate that dental decay is
coming down just as fast, if not faster, in non-fluoridated
industrialized countries as fluoridated ones (Diesendorf, 1986;
Colquhoun, 1994; World Health Organization, Online).
-
- 4) The largest survey conducted in the US showed only
a minute difference in tooth decay between children who had lived all
their lives in fluoridated compared to non-fluoridated communities. The
difference was not clinically significant nor shown to be statistically
significant (Brunelle & Carlos, 1990).
-
- 5) The worst tooth decay in the United States occurs
in the poor neighborhoods of our largest cities, the vast majority of
which have been fluoridated for decades.
-
- 6) When fluoridation has been halted in communities in
Finland, former East Germany, Cuba and Canada, tooth decay did not go up
but continued to go down (Maupome et al, 2001; Kunzel and Fischer, 1997,
2000; Kunzel et al, 2000 and Seppa et al, 2000).
-
- Fluoridation is UNSAFE because:
-
- 1) It accumulates in our bones and makes them more
brittle and prone to fracture. The weight of evidence from animal
studies, clinical studies and epidemiological studies on this is
overwhelming. Lifetime exposure to fluoride will contribute to higher
rates of hip fracture in the elderly. (See studies)
-
- 2) It accumulates in our pineal gland, possibly
lowering the production of melatonin a very important regulatory hormone
(Luke, 1997, 2001).
-
- 3) It damages the enamel (dental fluorosis) of a high
percentage of children. Between 30 and 50% of children have dental
fluorosis on at least two teeth in optimally fluoridated communities
(Heller et al, 1997 and McDonagh et al, 2000).
-
- 4) There are serious, but yet unproven, concerns about
a connection between fluoridation and osteosarcoma in young men (Cohn,
1992), as well as fluoridation and the current epidemics of both
arthritis and hypothyroidism.
-
- 5) In animal studies, fluoride at 1 ppm in drinking
water increases the uptake of aluminum into the brain (Varner et al,
1998).
-
- 6) Counties with 3 ppm or more of fluoride in their
water have lower fertility rates (Freni, 1994).
-
- 7) In human studies the fluoridating agents most
commonly used in the US not only increase the uptake of lead into
children's blood (Masters and Coplan, 1999, 2000) but are also
associated with an increase in violent behavior.
-
- 8) The margin of safety between the so-called
therapeutic benefit of reducing dental decay and many of these end
points is either nonexistent or precariously low.
-
- Fluoridation is INEQUITABLE, because:
-
- 1) It will go to all households, and the poor cannot
afford to avoid it, if they want to, because they will not be able to
purchase bottled water or expensive removal equipment.
-
- 2) The poor are more likely to suffer poor nutrition
which is known to make children more vulnerable to fluoride's toxic
effects (Massler & Schour 1952; Marier & Rose 1977; ATSDR 1993;
Teotia et al, 1998).
-
- 3) Very rarely, if ever, do governments offer to pay
the costs of those who are unfortunate enough to get dental fluorosis
severe enough to require expensive treatment.
-
- Fluoridation is INEFFICIENT and NOT COST-EFFECTIVE
because:
-
- 1) Only a small fraction of the water fluoridated
actually reaches the target. Most of it ends up being used to wash the
dishes, to flush the toilet or to water our lawns and gardens.
-
- 2) It would be totally cost-prohibitive to use
pharmaceutical grade sodium fluoride (the substance which has been
tested) as a fluoridating agent for the public water supply. Water
fluoridation is artificially cheap because, unknown to most people, the
fluoridating agent is an unpurified hazardous waste product from the
phosphate fertilizer industry.
-
- 3) If it was deemed appropriate to swallow fluoride
(even though its major benefits are topical not systemic) a safer and
more cost-effective approach would be to provide fluoridated bottle
water in supermarkets free of charge. This approach would allow both the
quality and the dose to be controlled. Moreover, it would not force it
on people who don't want it.
-
- Fluoridation is UNSCIENTIFICALLY PROMOTED. For
example:
-
- 1) In 1950, the US Public Health Service
enthusiastically endorsed fluoridation before one single trial had been
completed.
-
- 2) Even though we are getting many more sources of
fluoride today than we were in 1945, the so called "optimal
concentration" of 1 ppm has remained unchanged.
-
- 3) The US Public health Service has never felt obliged
to monitor the fluoride levels in our bones even though they have known
for years that 50% of the fluoride we swallow each day accumulates
there.
-
- 4) Officials that promote fluoridation never check to
see what the levels of dental fluorosis are in the communities before
they fluoridate, even though they know that this level indicates whether
children are being overdosed or not.
-
- 5) No US agency has yet to respond to Luke's finding
that fluoride accumulates in the human pineal gland, even though her
finding was published in 1994 (abstract), 1997 (Ph. D. thesis), 1998
(paper presented at conference of the International Society for Fluoride
Research), and 2001 (published in Caries Research).
-
- 6) The CDC's 1999, 2001 reports advocating
fluoridation were both six years out of date in the research they cited
on health concerns.
-
- Fluoridation is UNDEFENDABLE IN OPEN PUBLIC
DEBATE.
-
- The proponents of water fluoridation refuse to defend
this practice in open debate because they know that they would lose that
debate. A vast majority of the health officials around the US and in
other countries who promote water fluoridation do so based upon someone
else's advice and not based upon a first hand familiarity with the
scientific literature. This second hand information produces second rate
confidence when they are challenged to defend their position. Their
position has more to do with faith than it does with reason.
-
- Those who pull the strings of these public health
'puppets', do know the issues, and are cynically playing for time and
hoping that they can continue to fool people with the recitation of a
long list of "authorities" which support fluoridation instead of
engaging the key issues. As Brian Martin made clear in his book
Scientific Knowledge in Controversy: The Social Dynamics of the
Fluoridation Debate (1991), the promotion of fluoridation is based upon
the exercise of political power not on rational analysis. The question
to answer, therefore, is: "Why is the US Public Health Service choosing
to exercise its power in this way?"
-
- Motivations - especially those which have operated
over several generations of decision makers - are always difficult to
ascertain. However, whether intended or not, fluoridation has served to
distract us from several key issues. It has distracted us from:
-
- a) The failure of one of the richest countries in the
world to provide decent dental care for poor people.
-
- b) The failure of 80% of American dentists to treat
children on Medicaid.
-
- c) The failure of the public health community to fight
the huge over consumption of sugary foods by our nation's children, even
to the point of turning a blind eye to the wholesale introduction of
soft drink machines into our schools. Their attitude seems to be if
fluoride can stop dental decay why bother controlling sugar
intake.
-
- d) The failure to adequately address the health and
ecological effects of fluoride pollution from large industry. Despite
the damage which fluoride pollution has caused, and is still causing,
few environmentalists have ever conceived of fluoride as a
'pollutant.'
-
- e) The failure of the US EPA to develop a Maximum
Contaminant Level (MCL) for fluoride in water which can be
scientifically defended.
-
- f) The fact that more and more organofluorine
compounds are being introduced into commerce in the form of plastics,
pharmaceuticals and pesticides. Despite the fact that some of these
compounds pose just as much a threat to our health and environment as
their chlorinated and brominated counterparts (i.e. they are highly
persistent and fat soluble and many accumulate in the food chains and
our body fat), those organizations and agencies which have acted to
limit the wide-scale dissemination of these other halogenated products,
seem to have a blind spot for the dangers posed by organofluorine
compounds.
-
- So, while fluoridation is neither effective nor safe,
it continues to provide a convenient cover for many of the interests
which stand to profit from the public being misinformed about
fluoride.
-
- Unfortunately, because government officials have put
so much of their credibility on the line defending fluoridation, it will
be very difficult for them to speak honestly and openly about the issue.
As with the case of mercury amalgams, it is difficult for institutions
such as the American Dental Association to concede health risks because
of the liabilities waiting in the wings if they were to do so.
-
- However, difficult as it may be, it is nonetheless
essential - in order to protect millions of people from unnecessary harm
- that the US Government begin to move away from its anachronistic, and
increasingly absurd, status quo on this issue. There are precedents.
They were able to do this with hormone replacement therapy.
-
- But getting any honest action out of the US Government
on this is going to be difficult. Effecting change is like driving a
nail through wood - science can sharpen the nail but we need the weight
of public opinion to drive it home. Thus, it is going to require a
sustained effort to educate the American people and then recruiting
their help to put sustained pressure on our political representatives.
At the very least we need a moratorium on fluoridation (which simply
means turning off the tap for a few months) until there has been a full
Congressional hearing on the key issues with testimony offered by
scientists on both sides. With the issue of education we are in better
shape than ever before. Most of the key studies are available on the
internet and there are videotaped interviews with many of the scientists
and protagonists whose work has been so important to a modern
re-evaluation of this issue.
-
- With this new information, more and more communities
are rejecting new fluoridation proposals at the local level. On the
national level, there have been some hopeful developments as well, such
as the EPA Headquarters Union coming out against fluoridation and the
Sierra Club seeking to have the issue re-examined. However, there is
still a huge need for other national groups to get involved in order to
make this the national issue it desperately needs to be.
-
- I hope that if there are RFW readers who disagree with
me on this, they will rebut these arguments. If they can't than I hope
they will get off the fence and help end one of the silliest policies
ever inflicted on the citizens of the US. It is time to end this folly
of water fluoridation without further delay. It is not going to be
easy.
-
- Fluoridation represents a very powerful "belief
system" backed up by special interests and by entrenched governmental
power and influence.
-
- Paul Connett.
-
- All references cited can be found at
http://www.slweb.org/bibliography.
-
- http://www.prisonplanet.com/09_03_03_connett.html
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