Editor’s Word: This text is a reprint. It was initially printed October 14, 2017.
Right this moment, 74% of Individuals on neighborhood water techniques obtain fluoridated water.1 Since 1945, it has been broadly accepted within the U.S. that fluoride is “protected and efficient” to forestall tooth decay. However is it actually?
The 2015 documentary, “Fluoride: Poison on Faucet,” seeks to show what could also be one of many longest-running and most profitable deceptions identified to mankind — including industrial waste, within the type of fluoride, to public consuming water. You could be shocked on the lengths to which firms, trade and authorities have gone to make this industrial waste product seem helpful to your well being.
Fluoride = Well being: How Did We Get Right here?
You could be stunned to know the primary American business use of fluoride, within the type of sodium fluoride, was to kill bugs, lice, mice and different vermin. It was fairly efficient.
Within the Nineteen Thirties, aluminum trade big Alcoa was the biggest producer of fluoride, releasing vapors into the ambiance that crippled or killed livestock and scorched crops and different vegetation. In these early years, many lawsuits had been introduced towards Alcoa to get well damages from misplaced animals and crops.
Rising issues in regards to the seemingly damaging results of fluoride gasoline on human beings motivated the corporate to plot a way of recycling this potent industrial byproduct. The brainchild of water fluoridation was Gerald Cox, a researcher with the Mellon Institute in Pittsburgh. He obtained a request to have a look at fluoride’s results on tooth from Alcoa lab director Francis Frary, who was involved about mounting lawsuits associated to the fluoride air pollution his plant produced.
One other motivation was the fact that disposing of fluoride waste from its aluminum vegetation was changing into more and more pricey for Alcoa. Beforehand, the Mellon Institute had been the main defender of the asbestos trade, producing analysis displaying asbestos was innocent and employee well being issues had been purportedly because of different causes. Utilizing “science” as a smokescreen, the Mellon Institute was in a position to save the asbestos trade from monetary disaster.
On account of their success in utilizing science to prop up the asbestos trade at the moment, it is smart Alcoa selected Cox and the Mellon Institute to craft a narrative across the perceived well being advantages of fluoride. To make sure their success, Alcoa executives realized public opinion about fluoride needed to be fastidiously and repeatedly manipulated.
In a daring transfer, they employed public relations pioneer Edward Bernays, who later grew to become generally known as the “father of spin,” to go the U.S. water fluoridation marketing campaign. Utilizing psychological rules focused at what he referred to as, the “mass thoughts,” Bernays was fairly profitable in attracting public help for the widespread client use of fluoride.2
The Starting of Water Fluoridation
By the Nineteen Fifties and ’60s, when the follow of releasing fluoride vapors into the air was reined in as a result of introduction of air air pollution know-how, fluoride had already been added to U.S. consuming water. In January 1945, the town of Grand Rapids, Michigan, grew to become the primary of hundreds of U.S. municipalities to proudly add fluoride to its neighborhood water supply, below the guise of stopping tooth decay.
As know-how has superior, fluoride acid, often known as hydrofluorosilicic acid, is now caught in moist scrubbers, which curtails air emissions. As such, firms like Cargill, Mosaic and Pencco are in a position to barrel up and promote fluoride to cities throughout the U.S. which, in flip, add this unrefined hazardous materials to their neighborhood water provides.3 You could be shocked to be taught that the fluoride added to your water will not be pharmaceutical grade.
Certainly, many of the fluoride added to municipal consuming water is just an unrefined, extremely poisonous, industrial waste product. A few of the contaminants that accompany the fluoride added to your consuming water probably embody aluminum, arsenic, lead and radionucleotide, amongst others.
As famous within the movie, water fluoridation was invented as a worthwhile recycling venue for poisonous waste. As a substitute of getting to pay for correct disposal, this industrial waste is bought for revenue, and “disposed of” by being dispersed into consuming water.
Fluoride Could Be in Extra Than Simply Your Consuming Water
Do you have to be lucky to dwell removed from industrial vegetation the place fluoride is dealt with and fortunate sufficient to reside in a neighborhood the place fluoride has not been added to your water, you should still get dosed with fluoride. How? As a result of it is in drinks and processed meals similar to cereal, beer, juice and soda. In actual fact, something manufactured with fluoridated water will add to your physique’s fluoride toxicity burden.
In keeping with the late Jeff Inexperienced, former nationwide director of Residents for Secure Consuming Water, fluoride will also be present in selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) drugs, such because the antidepressant Prozac. Moreover, it appeared within the banned weight loss program drug Fen-Phen. Rohypnol, the so-called date-rape drug, additionally comprises fluoride.
Inexperienced famous the youngsters accountable for the shootings at Columbine Excessive Faculty, in Littleton, Colorado, in 1999 had been utilizing SSRI medication on the time, which he suspects might have impacted their temper and conduct. Should you dwell within the U.S., practically 95% of all toothpaste bought on this nation additionally comprises fluoride. More and more, dentists are including fluoride to their cement and filling supplies, and fluoride-containing varnishes are sometimes added to youngsters’s tooth.
Frequent Misconceptions About Water Fluoridation
It is a frequent false impression that fluoride is added to consuming water worldwide. Nothing might be farther from the reality. Says Paul Connett, Ph.D., retired chemistry professor and government director of the Fluoride Motion Community (FAN):4
“Water fluoridation is a peculiarly American phenomenon. It began at a time when asbestos lined our pipes, lead was added to gasoline, PCBs stuffed our transformers, and DDT was deemed so ‘protected and efficient’ that officers felt no qualms spraying youngsters at school lecture rooms and seated at picnic tables. One after the other all of these chemical substances have been banned, however fluoridation stays untouched.”
As acknowledged by Connett, the U.S. is one in all simply eight nations worldwide wherein greater than half of its inhabitants is uncovered to fluoride by their consuming water. The opposite seven nations that fluoridate consuming water are Australia, Colombia, Eire, Israel, Malaysia, Singapore and New Zealand.
Water fluoridation has truly been banned in most European nations, together with Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden, simply to call a number of. In keeping with organic dentist Dr. James Rota, these nations, in addition to China and Japan, have concluded the follow of including fluoride to consuming water is “ineffective, poisonous and shouldn’t be used.” FAN underscores the restricted scope and worth of including fluoride to consuming water, noting:5
- Almost 378 million individuals, representing simply 5% of the world’s inhabitants, drink artificially fluoridated water
- Extra individuals drink fluoridated water within the U.S. than in the remainder of the world mixed
- Western nations that fluoridate their water have charges of tooth decay comparable to those who don’t add fluoride to their water6
The Results of Fluoride on Your Physique
Provided that fluoride is dealt with as a hazardous materials and labeled accordingly, the shortage of transparency about its well being results is a real public well being travesty. In keeping with Rota, a number of of the scientifically confirmed well being results of fluoride are already identified. He asserts fluoride has been proven to:
- Speed up the growing old course of
- Trigger genetic harm
- Contribute to arthritis and joint ache
- Enhance the incidence of most cancers and tumor progress
- Interrupt DNA restore
With respect to fluoride’s presumed hyperlink to arthritis and joint ache, Connett acknowledged:
“The primary signal fluoride has poisoned your bones is that you’ve ache in your joints, stiffness in your joints and ache in your bones … And the physician will merely inform you that you’ve joint ache …
We have now tens of millions of individuals within the U.S. and in different fluoridated nations who’ve joint ache — 1 in 3 adults on common. However no one’s ever conclusively appeared to see if these arthritis circumstances have significantly been attributable to or exacerbated by fluoride. They simply do not need to look.”
The spike within the variety of circumstances of hypothyroidism within the U.S. has additionally been loosely linked to fluoride. FAN famous that research investigating fluoride’s affect on thyroid hormone ranges help the assumption that fluoride has an “antithyroid” impact below sure circumstances.7
Notably in cases the place your iodine ranges are low, fluoride will probably have a larger damaging affect in your thyroid. In regards to the possible hyperlink between fluoride and hypothyroidism, Dr. Spyros Mezitis, endocrinologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York Metropolis, stated:
“Clinicians … ought to emphasize to sufferers this affiliation and will check sufferers for underactive thyroid. Sufferers ought to in all probability be suggested to drink much less fluoridated water and devour much less fluoridated merchandise, together with toothpaste. … [S]tudies have additionally proven that iodine deficiency, which may be attributable to further ingestion of fluoride, is expounded to hypothyroidism.”
Fluorosis: Are Your Youngsters Affected?
Analysis8 offered on the 2017 Nationwide Oral Well being Convention highlighted the fact that more and more extra younger individuals between the ages of 6 and 19 undergo from dental fluorosis. Information from 2011 to 2012 point out that 57% of youth are affected by fluorosis, whereas in response to recorded information, simply 37% had been impacted from 1999 to 2004.
Fluorosis outcomes when tooth enamel turns into progressively weakened and discolored. It’s typically characterised by white spots and yellow or brown discoloration. About fluorosis, FAN states:9
“Fluorosis is a defect of tooth enamel attributable to an excessive amount of fluoride consumption through the first eight years of life. Though fluorosis will be cosmetically handled, the harm to the enamel is everlasting. Frequent causes of fluorosis embody: fluoridated consuming water (significantly throughout infancy), ingestion of fluoride toothpaste, use of fluoride tablets and consumption of processed meals made with fluoridated water.”
Typically, dentists and public well being officers brush off fluorosis as a purely aesthetic concern, one they imagine is a worthy trade-off for the supposed advantages of fluoride. In actuality, fluorosis is an outward signal that fluoride is damaging not solely your tooth, but in addition most actually, to a point, the remainder of your physique.
Warning: Fluoride Is Extraordinarily Dangerous for Infants
Fluorosis can be an enormous concern for infants as a result of it’s a situation that may progress nicely earlier than your child’s tooth are seen. Cases of kids creating fluorosis as a result of consumption of fluoridated “nursery water” are nicely documented. Breast-feeding is the best selection in your child for a lot of causes, one in all which is that it comprises little or no, if any, fluoride.
That is by design as a result of infants are extraordinarily susceptible to neurotoxins. If, nonetheless, breast-feeding will not be an possibility for you, and it’s essential to use method, you’ll want to put together it utilizing non-fluoridated water. Within the guide, “The Case In opposition to Fluoride,” Connett explains:
“Within the view of many critics of fluoridation … it’s reckless to show infants to ranges of fluoride in orders of magnitude larger than that present in breast milk. Within the U.S., infants who’re fed method reconstituted with fluoridated faucet water obtain the very best ranges of fluoride (per kilogram body weight) within the human inhabitants.
Particularly, infants who’re fed method made with fluoridated water on the present degree of 1 part-per-million fluoride will obtain a dose as much as 250 occasions greater than the breastfed toddler.”
The Backside Line About Fluoride in Your Consuming Water
Of their closing remarks, a number of the specialists featured within the documentary didn’t mince phrases about their dislike and mistrust of fluoridated water. As famous by Connett:
“As soon as you place a drugs within the consuming water, you’ll be able to’t management the dose as a result of you’ll be able to’t management how a lot water individuals drink. You may’t management who will get it as a result of it goes to all people. Should you ask your pharmacist if there’s any drug in his retailer that’s protected sufficient to offer to everybody — younger individuals, previous individuals, sick individuals, nicely individuals — at any dose, he’d snigger at you.”
Mentioned Phyllis Mullenix, Ph.D., a pharmacologist and toxicologist: “There may be completely no drug available on the market that’s given as ‘one dose suits all.'” In his earlier writings, Connett shared 5 causes he believes fluoridation of neighborhood water techniques is unethical:10
- It violates your proper to knowledgeable consent to remedy
- The municipality can’t management the dose of fluoride you personally obtain
- The municipality can’t observe the consequences of fluoride on you individually
- It ignores the truth that some persons are extra susceptible to fluoride’s poisonous results than others; chances are you’ll undergo whereas others might profit from its addition to the water provide
- It violates the Nuremberg code for human experimentation
It is Straightforward to Safeguard Your Oral Well being With out Fluoride
In terms of good oral hygiene and stopping cavities, consuming fluoridated water and brushing your tooth with poisonous toothpaste, which comprises fluoride, is unquestionably not the reply. Your toothbrush and pure fluoride-free toothpaste are vital, however do not be misled by considering they’re the one choices for dental well being.
Many pure substances, such because the meals you eat, even have the facility to drastically enhance not solely the well being of your tooth and gums, however the remainder of your physique too. The important thing to sustaining or enhancing your oral well being hinges on the eye you give to your weight loss program and correct dental care. Areas chances are you’ll need to contemplate embody:
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Consuming uncooked, natural meals |
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Avoiding sugary meals and processed meals, a lot of which comprise fluoride |
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Brushing and flossing your tooth each day, ideally twice a day |
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Rinsing your mouth after meals and, at evening, with an answer of baking soda and water to alkalize the pH in your mouth |
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Oil pulling with coconut oil, which reduces bacterial progress in your mouth, strengthens your tooth, reduces irritation in your gums and naturally whitens your tooth |
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Receiving common dental checkups, ideally from a mercury-free, organic dentist |
Landmark Lawsuit In opposition to EPA Seeks to Finish Fluoridation in US
FAN, together with a coalition of environmental and public well being teams, has filed a grievance within the U.S. District Courtroom for the Northern District of California towards the Environmental Safety Company (EPA). This landmark lawsuit is one thing many people have anticipated for many years! It is available in response to the EPA’s denial of a petition below Part 21 of the Poisonous Substances Management Act (TSCA) that seeks a ban on water fluoridation.
In November 2016, a coalition together with FAN, American Academy of Environmental Drugs, Meals & Water Watch, Worldwide Academy of Oral Drugs and Toxicology, Mothers In opposition to Fluoridation and the Natural Shoppers Affiliation, amongst others, petitioned the EPA to ban the deliberate addition of fluoridating chemical substances to American consuming water below the provisions of TCSA.
The petition, which included greater than 2,500 pages of scientific documentation detailing the dangers of water fluoridation to human and animal well being, was denied in February 2017. At the moment, Michael Connett, an legal professional with FAN and writer of the petition, issued the next assertion:
“Sadly, the EPA’s choice to disclaim our petition demonstrates that the Company will not be but ready to let go of the outdated assumptions it has lengthy held about fluoride … We imagine that an neutral decide reviewing this proof will agree that fluoridation poses an unreasonable threat.”
As a result of the TSCA statute supplies a chance for residents to problem an EPA denial in federal courtroom, FAN is now suing the company as a way of acquiring an unbiased authorized evaluation of the proof. Keep tuned for additional developments! For now, you’ll be able to assist the coalition proceed its momentum by supporting the efforts of FAN, and by becoming a member of or initiating a neighborhood marketing campaign to finish water fluoridation.
