Fluoridation 101 (Fluoridation History)

The chemical fluoride (hydrofluosilicic acid), purposely added to most US water supplies, doesn't treat the water but does treat the water drinker who is told fluoride is a safe and effective cavity fighter. But it's neither.

A 1940's concept, water fluoridation's goal was for every faucet in America to dispense one milligram fluoride (sodium fluoride) daily via approximately 1 quart of water for the benefit of children only (up to age nine). It was mistakenly believed that swallowed fluoride incorporated into young children's developing teeth making them decay resistant. However, modern researchers discovered that fluoride ingestion only causes adverse effects (tooth and bone damage, etc) and that fluoride’s perceived benefits are only topical.  So there’s no longer any scientifically valid reason for swallowing fluoride or continuing water fluoridation.

In fact, just this year (2015) one of the most trusted research bodies, the UK-based Cochrane Collaboration, was the latest research body to reveal that no valid evidence exists to prove fluoridation helps the poor, adults or that stopping fluoridation increases decay rates. Cochrane reports that fluoridation may reduce cavities in children (2 primary teeth or 1 permanent tooth) but cautions these studies have “high risk of bias” and were mostly done before preventive measures were widespread, e.g. fluoridated toothpaste and sealants

Fluoridation came at a time when scientists discovered health-requiring nutrients prevented “diseases,” such as Vitamin C deficiency caused scurvy, vitamin D deficiency caused rickets, etc.  So dental researchers thought their magic bullet against tooth decay was fluoride. Many studies, research grants and decades later, we now know that teeth don’t need fluoride at all.  Fluoride-deficiency does not cause tooth decay.  Rotten diets cause rotten teeth and no amount of fluoride changes that.

Public health officials predicted fluoride would eradicate tooth decay like vaccines prevented some diseases but they were wrong. Today, the US is facing a tooth decay epidemic after 70 years of fluoridation, 60 years of fluoridated toothpaste, a glut of fluoridated dental products (and in higher concentrations), a fluoride-saturated food supply and fluoride-containing medicines.  Up to 60% of US adolescents are afflicted with fluoride-overdose symptoms – dental fluorosis (white spotted, yellow, brown and/or pitted teeth) but 50% of them still have cavities. Tooth decay crises are occurring in all fluoridated cities and states.  See: http://www.FluorideNews.Blogspot.com

Also back in the 1940’s, fluoride tablets were first prescribed to and recommended for children who live in communities that wouldn't or couldn't fluoridate with no or very poor research to back that up.

Fluoride supplements still haven’t been safety tested by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). They were "grandfathered" in because sodium fluoride was already being sold pre-1938 when drug testing laws were enacted.  Sodium fluoride was sold as a rat poison.  The FDA says, “We don't have information on the medical uses of fluoride before 1938.”

Many modern reviews conclude that fluoride supplementation is useless and harmful including the Cochrane Collaboration which reported fluoride supplements fail to reduce tooth decay in primary teeth and permanent teeth cavity-reduction is dubious.

Studies now show tooth decay rates are virtually the same in fluoridated and non-fluoridated communities, alike. In fact, some non-fluoridated communities enjoy lower tooth decay rates.

Dental fluorosis has gotten so bad that some dental experts say that it costs more to repair teeth damaged by fluoride than would have been saved had water fluoridation actually reduced tooth decay.

HOW WE GOT INTO THIS MESS
At the turn of the last century, healthy, wealthier residents of the Southwest US had unusually ugly teeth. They called it "Colorado Brown Stain." Dental researchers sought to discover the source of this disfiguring tooth malformation. The culprit was high levels of natural calcium fluoride in the water. Since these ugly teeth resisted decay, well-meaning but misguided dentists assumed the fluoride also caused the teeth to resist decay. However, they overlooked calcium which we now know is essential for healthy teeth..

Dentists always settle where people can afford them – something that hasn’t changed today.  So what they actually discovered was that a healthy lifestyle creates decay-free teeth and that fluoride discolors teeth. This had already been proven by dentist Weston Price in his 1939 book, “Nutrition and Physical Degeneration.”

In another highly unbelievable move, the dentists convinced public health people to experiment with this new fluoride discovery. They hypothesized that, if natural fluoride (calcium fluoride) in drinking water makes teeth resist decay, let's see if artificially fluoridating a town's water supply with sodium fluoride makes any difference. (Calcium fluoride is much less toxic than sodium fluoride because calcium binds tightly to fluoride.  Calcium is the antidote for fluoride poisoning)

So they used all the people in a few cities like Grand Rapids Michigan and Newburgh New York as their guinea pigs. In Newburgh, NY, they added sodium fluoride into the water supply in 1945 and left Kingston, NY, unfluoridated to act as the control.

They prematurely declared fluoridation a success after only five years even though the teeth of the children who were born into the experiment hadn’t even erupted yet. They said fluoride was safe because they examined school children who weren't sick two weeks before the examination date - virtually eliminating the very children who may have been made ill by the fluoride. And they never even checked out the adults. Long range and brain effects weren’t even considered.

Ten years later, the State University of New York found that children in fluoridated Newburgh had more cortical bone defects and higher rates of hemoglob anemia. Recent studies show that tooth decay and fluorosis rates are higher in fluoridated Newburgh than never-fluoridation Kingston.

And what's even more perverse is that the chemical used to fluoridate your drinking water is an industrial waste product that, along with fluoride, purposely puts lead, arsenic, and other toxins into the public water supply.

The silicofluorides haven't even been safety tested in animals. With the map of the USA as a laboratory, researchers are finding that silicofluorides increase children's lead absorption, increases women's risk of hip fractures, increases dental fluorosis, can lower IQ and contribute to cancer risk and DNA damage. Fluoridation has provided a lucrative sector for researchers to apply for federal grants to study the after effects of the crazy decision to put fluoride into humans' water supply and then see what happens. 

Over 67% of US communities fluoridate and most foods and beverages sold in the US are made with that water. US children are overdosed with fluoride whether rich or poor, healthy or malnourished from various sources. No human is, or ever was, fluoride deficient. So it's not a surprise that after 55 years of pushing fluoride (now 70) as a panacea to tooth decay, the US Surgeon General reported in 2000 that an oral health epidemic exists among the poor and certain minority groups, who most often already live in fluoridated communities. If their bodies were nourished, their teeth would prosper. But instead dentists are lobbying legislators all over the US to fluoridate water supplies - even when the people have voted against it and even when the studies say fluoride is hurting our children. Meanwhile, the American Dental Association reported to the press on June 16, 2000 that they have a new cavity fighting tool - calcium.

See Where Fluoride Accumulates in Your Body

Fakes, Frauds, Fabricators and Fluoridationists

Fluoridation protectionists have faith in fluoridation; but fluoridation research reviewers need science. And it's just not there.

The trusted UK-based Cochrane Group is yet another respected scientific research body to find that fluoridation’s benefits are built upon a house of cards (June 2015).  Cochrane reports that studies purporting to show fluoridation’s ability to reduce tooth decay are out-dated, have a high risk of bias and were conducted before the widespread use of fluoridated dental products, in other words - scientifically invalid. 

Unlike the US Centers for Disease Control and the American Dental Association which work very closely together with industry promoting fluoridation, Cochrane does not accept commercial or conflicted funding which Cochrane says “is vital for us to generate authoritative and reliable information, produced by people who can work freely, unconstrained by commercial and financial interests.”

Fluoridation is newly framed as a boon to poor kids. But, Cochrane reports, “There is insufficient evidence to determine whether water fluoridation results in a change in disparities in caries [cavities] levels across SES [socio-economic-status or income]."

Other untrue arguments fluoridationists present to too-trusting governing bodies aren’t supported by valid science either e.g. fluoridation benefits adults and tooth decay rates go up when fluoridation is stopped. Cochrane could find no proof that this is true.

As is often the case, new information doesn’t stop organized dentistry from spinning the results to protect and promote fluoridation.

The Cochrane’s fluoridation review was conducted using a precise scientific method over a necessary period of time. It took the British Dental Association (BDA) less than one day to spin Cochrane’s results via a news release, cherry-picking data to report favorably - that fluoridation reduces cavities by up to 35%. Cochrane answered its critics on its blog

The BDA's figure is based on the poor and biased science, revealed by Cochrane, which shows a child’s  fluoridation “benefit” is just less than two primary teeth or one permanent tooth over their lifetimes. Even if this “benefit” was based on sound-science, this small decay reduction doesn’t justify the hundreds of millions of dollars poured into fluoridation schemes, lobbyists, hand-outs, research reviews, strategy meetings, spokesperson training and fluoridation consultants and PR agents hired by the CDC and many states and organizations to protect and promote fluoridation. The costs to remedy fluoride's health-damaging effects add to the country's financial burden.

According to Dr. Stan Litras BDS BSc, Cochrane pooled old data from as long as 70 years ago when decay rates were 10 times greater than today. Thus the slim cavity reduction Cochrane reports reflect savings over the entire period from the 1930's to the present. "This is not an indication of any reductions to be expected in contemporary society," he writes

After the BDA's news release, an unnamed author wrote an article on an American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) fluoridation-promoting website, also criticizing Cochrane in an all-too-familiar knee-jerk non-scientific fashion. 

The CDC funded the Cochrane Review to upgrade the 2013 U.S. Community Preventive Services Task Force’s Fluoridation Recommendation (which itself is based on the same low-quality evidence.

When Cochrane's review didn't come out the way CDC would have liked, the CDC diverted attention away from Cochrane in favor of the out-dated Task Force Review. 

It should be noted that the Task Review says the basis for its report is a previous 2000 fluoridation systematic review dubbed the "York Review" (McDonagh 2000). In 2003, the York (McDonagh 2000) reviewers were forced to explain: "We are concerned about the continuing misinterpretations of the evidence...We were unable to discover any reliable good-quality evidence in the fluoridation literature world-wide."

Fluoridation protectionists will always pick apart any study or review that’s critical of fluoride or fluoridation; but never look in their own backyard – even when objective researchers point out flaws.

It was admitted that fluoridation gives dentistry “political viability” in a 1981 Journal of the  American Dental Association article. (“Fluoridation Election Victory: A Case Study for Dentistry in Effective Political Action”)

In the 1940s and 1950s, dentists in their eagerness to have a magic bullet that would enhance their professional prestige, promoted fluoridation heavily and dismissed legitimate debate over the merits of fluoridation within the scientific, medical and dental communities, according to an American Journal of Public Health article by Catherine Carstairs, PhD (June 2015). 

Carstairs writes, “Moreover, some of the early fluoridation studies had methodological problems, which may have exaggerated their benefits.”

Carstairs concludes “After 70 years of investigation, there are still questions about how effective water fluoridation is at preventing dental decay and whether the possible risks are worth the benefits,” she writes. 

Also surprised by the lack of valid fluoridation science, John Doull, PhD, Chairman, US National Research Council fluoride panel that produced the groundbreaking 2006 fluoride toxicology report was quoted by Scientific American as saying:

“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.”

Maybe Doull was surprised  because voices of opposition have been suppressed since the early days of fluoridation, according to Chemical and Engineering News (1988). Journals rarely published articles critical of fluoride or fluoridation.

A Nassau/Suffolk (NY) Oral Health Coalition created a rule that members had to sign an affidavit claiming they would promote the goals of the NYS Oral Health Coalition so that the one fluoridation dissenter would be forced to leave or lie.  I left.

On another occasion (April 18, 2015), I was rudely asked to leave a free pro-fluoridation strategy session funded by my taxes, in my neighborhood and at a public university.  Only later did I discover through a freedom of information request that organizers were fearful of my attendance and that the decision to oust me came from the then Dental Bureau Chief, dentist J. V. Kumar. Ironically, they were teaching dental hygienists how to answer questions from those who oppose fluoridation!

Authors of a 1999 textbook (revised 2005), by Burt and Eklund,  admitted that the early fluoridation trials, which are the foundation for the entire fluoridation program, “were rather crude…statistical analysis by today’s standards, were primitive; data from the control communities were largely neglected after the initial reports, with conclusions based on the much weaker before-after analyses.”

Some examples of those mistakes were reported in  Fluoridation Errors and Omissions in Experimental Trials, by Sutton

In 2001, a National Institutes of Health (NIH)/CDC panel convened to evaluate tooth decay research, published between 1839 and 1965, and reported

 "... the panel was disappointed in the overall quality of the clinical data that it reviewed.  According to the panel, far too many studies were small, poorly described, or otherwise methodologically flawed" (over 560 studies evaluated fluoride use).

Even pro-fluoride dental researchers worried that the lack of evidence-based-dentistry practiced in the US will hurt their reputations. For example, Dentist Amid Ismail, when he was a Professor at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry, in a report to the NIH panel wrote,

"If the current weak trend of caries research in the United States continues, history will be harsh on all of us for our failure to use our knowledge and resources to reduce, if not eliminate, the burden of one of the world's most prevalent diseases."

In 2001, Cohen and Locker reported that fluoridation may be immoral with benefits exaggerated and risks minimized Journal of the Canadian Dental Association .   "Ethically, it cannot be argued that past benefits, by themselves, justify continuing the practice of fluoridation," they write.

A 1990 New York State  Department of Health report concluded

“The effectiveness of water fluoridation alone cannot now be determined…the effects of fluoride exposure cannot be accurately assessed based solely on the fluoride content of drinking water in an area”

In 1978, Pennsylvania Judge John P. Flaherty who had a science background, presided over a court case (Aikenhead v. Borough of West View), where fluoridation proponents were sworn under oath to tell the truth and were subjected to cross-examination. He concluded,

“In my view, the evidence is quite convincing that the addition of sodium fluoride to the public water supply at one part per million is extremely deleterious to the human body, and, a review of the evidence will disclose that there was no convincing evidence to the contrary...”

In the 1950’s, Francis Bull, the state dental director in Wisconsin, argued that cavities could be decreased by practicing good oral hygiene, restricting sugar consumption, and improving diet, but he didn’t trust the public to do that.  Fluoride, in his view, offered the first real preventive from dental caries, according to Carstairs AJPH article.

Bull infamously lead dental directors in 1951 to “sell” fluoridation with slick PR and political strategy but to never ever debate. For example:

“Now, why should we do a pre-fluoridation survey?  Is it to find out if fluoridation works? No. We have told the public it works, so we can’t go back on that.”

“You know these research people – they can’t get over their feeling that you have to have test tube and animal research before you start applying it to human beings.”

The “say this; not that” approach to political fluoridation activism is still encouraged by a pro-fluoridation activism website claimed by the American Academy of Pediatrics's  that was created by a PR agency.

Fluoridation promoters generally use a CDC slogan as proof that fluoridation is safe and effective.  But few realize that the CDC does not do original research but relies on others’ reports and reviews, many of which do not prove that fluoridation is safe and effective, as former CDC Oral Health Division Director erroneously presented to a Fairbanks, Alaska, city council.

In 2009, the American Public Health Association used the same misinformation. 

Other believers presented the same misinformation more recently e.g. (slide 9)

Taxpayers should be shocked to learn that the CDC does spend time and money on political strategy to win fluoridation referenda, according to “The Public Votes on Fluoridation – Factors Linked to the Outcome ofFluoridation Campaigns,” (CDC April 2010)

Here’s some of the advice given:

“For the most part, the less visible the campaign, the more likely that fluoridation was approved by the voters.”

“Conduct social marketing research with voters…This could be valuable in developing the most effective campaign messages and finding the best ways of promoting these messages to the public.”

“In all four sites where fluoridation was approved, fluoridation advocates were able to write or influence the wording of the ballot. Ballot wording becomes an important piece of voter education, the way a ballot measure is phrased can influence how voters interpret and cast their votes.”

“The take-away message is that it cannot be assumed that people will trust only official and/or governmental sources of health and scientific information. The American public is becoming increasingly confident about making their judgment about what is good science. The term “junk science” may no longer be an effective communication strategy.”

But “junk science” is the exact phrase still used by many fluoridation promoters e.g. Shelly Gehshan, when she represented the Pew Foundation.

You would think some investigative reporter would write a book about this.  Oh yeah, someone did.

 “Fluoride science is corporate science. Fluoride science is DDT science. It’s asbestos science. It’s tobacco science It’s a racket,” said Christopher Bryson, the award-winning investigative reporter who wrote, The Fluoride Deception, after ten years of study.

Science is explained in the carefully referenced The Case Against Fluoride – How Hazardous Waste Ended Up in Our Drinking Water and the Bad Science and Powerful Politics That Keep It There , by Connett, Beck and Micklem

We've had 70 years of fluoridation reaching record numbers of Americans, 60 years of fluoridated toothpaste, a glut of fluoridated dental products and a fluoride-saturated food and beverage supply.  Yet, the US is still facing a tooth decay epidemic along with a steep increase in fluoride overdose symptoms - dental fluorosis (discolored teeth).

The Surgeon General reported in 2000 that tooth decay is a silent epidemic in the US. Since then things have gotten worse. According to Wendell Potter on the Huffington Post:

--  Since 2000, the number of people living in areas where they can't easily see  a dentisthas climbed from 25 million to 47 million.

-- The number of people seeking treatment for dental problems in hospital  emergency rooms--one of the most expensive and least effective places to treat patients in pain because of bad teeth and diseased gums--nearly doubled from 1.1 million in 2000 to 2.1 million in 2010.

-- Dental decay is still the number one chronic illness among children.

-- More than a third of elementary school children have untreated tooth decay; the rate is twice as high for Hispanic and non-Hispanic black children and even worse for Native Americans.

-- Even though more children have dental benefits, half of all kids on Medicaid  did not get in to see a dentist in 2011, in large part because 80 percent of dentists nationally still do not accept Medicaid payment

Harvard describes a court case about a few corporations that sell fluoridated toothpaste and reported they "had long ago launched products with the maximum amount of fluoride allowed by health authorities. Yet caries [cavities] remained a significant threat to public health in many countries, both developing and developed." 

Every fluoride modality promises that steep cavity declines can occur.  Tooth decay should be obliterated by now if all that was true. But it's getting worse.

So, why is fluoridation still promoted?

Maybe the wheels of government turn slowly.  It took 50 years before the cancer/smoking link emerged from the scientific literature into popular acceptance.

Or, maybe, we might say Follow the Money!

                                                       END

CDC Shows Fluoridation is Futile

News Release from New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation, Inc. (NYSCOF

CDC's Statistics Prove Fluoridation is Futile, says NYSCOF

New York – June  2015 --The CDC reports that almost all adults have cavities and significant oral health disparities by race still persist. This after 7 decades of fluoridation reaching record numbers of Americans via the water and food supply, reports the New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation, Inc. (NYSCOF).

 

Fluoride added to public water supplies attempts to prevent cavities and level out decay between poor and non-poor, in children and adults.  But government statistics reveal it hasn’t.

 

The May 2015 CDC Data Brief by Dye et al. reports 90% of all adults have cavities and two-thirds of 40 to 64-year-olds lost one or more teeth due to decay. Tooth loss and untreated cavities are drastically higher in African-Americans. The poor are more cavity-prone but Dye failed to provide statistics based on socio-economic-status.

 

Dye said his figures are conservative since root or smooth surface cavities, more prevalent in the elderly, were excluded. He speculated that disparities persist because of a lack of dental care.

For example, in fluoridated Greeley, Colorado 60 to 70 percent of one dentist's child patients in Greeley need care that goes beyond checkups, such as fillings or other work, which he said is on par with the national average for lower-income communities, according to the Greeley Tribune. The reason is that most dentists won't accept Medicaid patients.

“Dental Therapists could fix this problem,” says attorney Paul Beeber, NYSCOF President. “But organized dentistry, using its power and money, lobby against legalizing Dental Therapists, protecting its lucrative monopoly, instead,” says Beeber.

Inappropriately, the American Dental Association is “doubling down” on fluoridation causing government agencies to waste millions of dollars yearly which could be spent treating teeth not water.

Beeber says, “Fluoridation isn’t the solution; it’s the problem. Organized dentistry, with its pockets full of corporate cash, ‘fool’ legislators into believing fluoridation is a panacea for the poor when it’s just another way to avoid legislative mandates for dentists to treat Medicaid and Medicare patients.”

 

The Surgeon General's 2000 report identified oral health as a "silent epidemic."  But, nothing changed despite dozens of reports, meetings, hearings, webinars, and conferences, many of which identified fluoride research needs that still haven't been done. States hired fluoridation consultants, dental directors and conduct fluoridation spokesperson training.

 

“There has been no progress, really, in the national decay rates, especially in people who are living 100 percent below poverty,” according to that Greeley dentist.

 

According to the Indian Health Services (IHS) (April 2015), American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) preschoolers have the highest level of tooth decay of any population group in the US

 

IHS reports that "This disparity exists...Despite wide implementation of fluoridation, topical fluorides, dental sealants and oral health education," For example, 3/4 of AI/AN five-year-olds have primary teeth cavities (44% untreated).

 

By comparison, the NON-fluoridated counties in New York State have much lower third-graders' tooth decay rates shown in parentheses: Schuyler (29%), Tompkins (42%), Essex (50%), Montgomery (42%) , Putnam (39%), Rockland (47%) , Nassau (42%), Suffolk (49%),

 

According to Oral Health America

• Only about 2% of older adults have dental insurance
• Emergency room visits due to dental problems more than doubled in the past decade
• Obamacare, Medicare do not cover dental care for adults

 

“Fluoridation is a public health blunder that  must end,” says Beeber. Americans need dental care not fluoride.

 

 

SOURCE:  NYS Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation, Inc.

Fluoride's Adverse Health Effects:  http://www.FluorideAction.Net/issues/health

NYSCOF on Twitter

NYSCOF on Facebook

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CDC Fudges Fluoride Data AGAIN – FluorideGate Scandal Intensifies

Dr. Katherine Weno, Director of CDC’s Oral Health Division’s, recent fluoridation statement (4/2/2015) continues the CDC's pattern of misrepresenting fluoridation safety. Weno seemed to cherry pick information, use outdated science, ignore valid fluoride-damaging reports. And, indirectly, she admits fluoridation failed.

Weno’s letter says, “The U.S. Public Health Service; the United Kingdom’s National Institute for Health Research, Centre for Reviews and Dissemination, at the University of York; and the National Health and Medical Research Council, Australia have all conducted scientific reviews by expert panels and concluded that community water is a safe and effective way to promote good oral health and prevent decay.”

This is what those reports truly say:

1) Review of fluoride: benefits and risks. US Public Health Service (1991)

Far from declaring fluoridation safe, this 24-year-old report identified what isn’t and still isn't known, including:

The relationship, if any, that exists between bone fractures and fluoride intake and fluoride bone levels. It’s also recommended studies be done on fluoride's reproductive toxicity and whether or not fluoride is genotoxic; but have yet to be done.

2) A Systematic Review of Public Water Fluoridation. University of York, 2000 (UK)

About this 15-year-old report, the authors wrote in 2003 “We were unable to discover any reliable good-quality evidence in the fluoridation literature world-wide...The evidence about reducing inequalities in dental health was of poor quality, contradictory and unreliable.... An association with water fluoride and other adverse effects such as cancer, bone fracture and Down's syndrome was not found. However, we felt that not enough was known because the quality of the evidence was poor.”

3) National Health and Medical Research Council, The use of fluorides in Australia: Guidelines. Australian Dental Journal  2006

This is not a safety study but one that reported different fluoride modalities and dental fluorosis risks. And it’s partially funded by Colgate, a corporation that benefits from fluoride sales.

Weno says the next report and number 1 above, have “not found convincing scientific evidence linking community water fluoridation with any potential adverse health effect or systemic disorder such as an increased risk for cancer Down syndrome, heart disease, osteoporosis and bone fracture, immune disorders, low intelligence, renal disorders, Alzheimer disease, or allergic reactions.” 

4) Community Preventive Services Task Force. Guide to Community Preventive Services: Preventing Dental Caries: Community Water Fluoridation 

This is not a safety study. “It is based on 28 studies about the effect of CWF [Community Water Fluoridation] on caries [cavities]; 16 about oral health disparities, and 117 about dental fluorosis. Most of these studies were included in an existing systematic review (McDonough 2000, search period 1966-1999; 26 studies on caries; 13 on oral health disparities; 88 on fluorosis), combined with more recent evidence (search period 1999-2012; 2 on caries; 3 on oral health disparities and 29 on fluorosis),” according to the reports authors.

Conspicuous by its absence, neither in Weno’s statement nor references, is the  2006 US National Research Council’s (NRC) Fluoride Report, commissioned by the EPA, which found studies that link fluoride to lower and IQ are plausible. The NRC also set off the decision to caution that routinely mixing fluoridated water into infant formula puts babies at higher risk of developing dental fluorosis.

 According to the NRC panel’s chairman Dr. John Doull, “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.”

Fluoride “Brain-Drain” can be Damaging Generations of Children, according to renowned physician and 30-year brain researcher, Dr. Phillipe Grandjean in his new book, “Only One Chance: How Environmental Pollution Impairs Brain Development.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) lists fluoride as having "Substantial Evidence of Developmental Neurotoxicity." A paper in The Lancet classified fluoride as one of the few chemicals known to damage the developing brain in humans

Forty-three out of 50 studies show fluoride reduces IQ - many at levels allowed in US water supplies.

So it’s not surprising that the first US study to look at fluoridation’s brain effects “demonstrated an association between more widespread exposure to fluoridated water and increased ADHD prevalence in U.S. children and adolescents, even after controlling for SES [socio-economic-status]. The findings suggest that fluoridated water may be an environmental risk factor for ADHD,” the authors conclude.

More evidence of harm is here:  http://www.FluorideAction.Net/issues/health

The CDC’s Oral Health Division Director Weno claims that fluoridation is a proven strategy to improve oral health but admits “profound disparities in oral health status remain for some population subgroups, such as the poor, the elderly, and many members of racial and ethnic minority groups.”

These are the very groups that fluoridation was supposed to help. What this really means is that 70 years of fluoridation reaching record numbers of Americans has failed to do its intended job.

It's not the first time fluoridation safety was misrepresented by the CDC

Former CDC fluoridation spokesperson, dentist William Bailey, also fudged the truth to the Fairbanks City Council

Freedom of Information requests reveal that CDC officials are concerned about fluoride's kidney effects; but publicly say there’s no connection.

When fluoridation began, it was projected that only 10% of children would be affected with hardly discernible fluorosis (white flecked teeth). But fluorosis now afflicts 41% of adolescents – 3.6% is severe (yellow or brown stains). Further, government health authorities knew since 1962 that black Americans suffered double the fluorosis risks than others; but still fail to alert the Black community.

  

In April 2015, the US Department of Health and Human Services admitted it has been overdosing Americans with fluoride and instructed water companies to lower levels to 0.7 mg/L.  HHS says in ten years, they'll check again to see if they got it "right" this time.

Congress needs to investigate the CDC’s oral health division to find out whose interests they are really serving because it isn’t the American public.