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 Weno seemed to cherry pick information, use outdated science, ignore valid fluoride-damaging reports.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.