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.