ORALLY INGESTED UNAPPROVED SODIUM FLUORIDE DRUGS DELIVER RISKS WITHOUT BENEFITS
Prescribing orally ingestible unapproved sodium fluoride drugs to reduce tooth decay is based on a flawed concept - that artificial water fluoridation reduces cavities (evidence below). So, it makes sense that modern studies show fluoride drugs deliver risk of more dental fluorosis without benefit of less tooth decay. For example:
1) In 2001, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation research revealed fluoride tablets and mouth rinses failed to reduce tooth decay. “The widely held assumption that caries in children could be reduced, if not eliminated, through school-based programs using fluoride tablets, fluoride mouth rinses, fluoride-containing toothpaste, and oral health education—an assumption encouraged by the National Institute of Dental Research National Caries Program—had not been adequately tested,” writes chapter author Paul Brodeur. “However, according to data compiled from the demonstration program, school-based weekly fluoride mouth rinsing and daily fluoride tablets were ‘not consistently effective in preventing clinically significant tooth decay beyond that already prevented by typical home and dental office care.’"
2) A 2001 National Institutes of Health Consensus Development Program panel for the Diagnosis and Management of Dental Caries Throughout life reported in a news release that "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." ( Hundreds of studies evaluated fluoride use including several on fluoride supplements.) (Citations from January 1980 through December 2000 were used.)
3) In 2011, the Cochrane Oral Health Group reported that fluoride supplements fail to reduce tooth decay in primary teeth, permanent teeth cavity-reduction is dubious and health risks are little studied. Further, "When fluoride supplements were compared with topical fluorides or with other preventive measures, there was no differential effect on permanent or deciduous teeth," write Cochrane researchers Ismail et al, The Cochrane research team reports, "We rated 10 trials as being at unclear risk of bias and one at high risk of bias, and therefore the trials provide weak evidence about the efficacy of fluoride supplements." The team "found limited information on the adverse effects associated with the use of fluoride supplements."
4) “No decrease in caries levels were found in children who had taken fluoride supplements daily from birth, but who discontinued around two years of age.” Thylstrup et al., 1979 and Fanning 3t al., 1975 (Presentation by Karen M. Yoder, PhD, Associate Professor and Director, Division of Community Dentistry, Indiana University School of Dentistry in 2003)
5) “No difference in caries was observed in the permanent dentition. The findings indicate in accordance with current theories that topical effects of fluoride rather than the systemic effects have prevented dental caries.” (Thylstrup et al. in “Enamel Changes and Dental Caries in 7-Year-Old Children Given Fluoride Tablets from Shortly after Birth,” Caries Research )
6) Fluoride incorporated into developing teeth does NOT reduce tooth decay but does increase fluorosis, according to Authors of a 1999 textbook (revised 2005), by Burt and Eklund, who admitted that the early fluoridation trials, which are the foundation for the entire US 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.”
7) As conceded by a pro-fluoride researcher, “virtually none of the early fluoride supplement studies would be published today, because of methodological and other shortcomings.” (Riordan 1999). He writes: “Although the effectiveness of fluoride supplements was apparently endorsed by many small clinical studies, closer examination of the experimental conditions of these, their methods and the analysis of their results undermined confidence in their findings…More modern, well-conducted clinical trials of supplements suggest that today, in children also exposed to fluoride from other sources such as toothpaste, the marginal effect of fluoride supplements is very small… Supplement use by young children is associated with a substantial risk of dental fluorosis.”
8) “The case for eliminating the use of dietary fluoride supplements among young children,” Journal of public health Dentistry, BA Burt, September 1999 - Burt lists 3 reasons why fluoride supplements are inappropriate today a) efficacy is weak b) risk of fluorosis c) fluoride has little preeruptive effect in caries prevention.
“North American children today are exposed to fluoride from many sources–drinking water, toothpaste, gels, rinses, and in processed foods and beverages.The additional cariostatic benefits that accrue from using supplements are marginal at best, while there is strong risk of fluorosis when young children use supplements,” he writes. “It is therefore concluded that the risks of using supplements in infants and young children outweigh the benefits. Because alternative forms of fluoride for high-risk individuals exist, fluoride supplements should no longer be used for young children in North America,” writes Burt.
9) “The use of dental floss, fluoride supplements or sugar snacking in addition to brushing twice daily, did not reduce the probability of having caries,” Oral health behaviours in 12-year-olds. Association with caries and characteristics of the children” Acta Odontol Scand Jan 2022
10) “There is also a scientific knowledge gap on the benefit and optimal use of these fluoride supplements in combination with daily tooth brushing with fluoride toothpaste,” based on a review of clinical trials published between 2003 and 2014 Caries Research, “Fluoride Rinses, Gels and Foams: An Update of Controlled Clinical Trials,” by Twetman et al. April 2016
11) In 2001, the CDC’s MMWR report admitted “Fluoride works primarily after teeth have erupted…” CDC also admits that “The prevalence of dental caries in a population is not inversely related to the concentration of fluoride in enamel, and a higher concentration of enamel fluoride is not necessarily more efficacious in preventing dental caries.” They also admit that the amount of fluoride emerging from saliva to bathe teeth topically with fluoride is too low to have any beneficial effect. Although the CDC is often cited as praising fluoridation as a great achievement of the last century, the CDC seems to divest itself of responsibility by saying “It is not CDC’s task to determine what levels of fluoride in water are safe.”
Science doesn’t support fluoride ingestion as a decay preventive. Of added concern is that practitioners aren’t following their own guidelines to tally total fluoride intake from all sources before more is prescribed. It’s undisputed that too much fluoride damages bones, brains and children’s developing teeth.
We know 70% of US kids are fluoride-overexposed, afflicted with dental fluorosis - some of it moderate/severe, according to “Associations of low level of fluoride exposure with dental fluorosis among U.S. children and adolescents, NHANES 2015–2016,” published in, Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety, September 2021. Yet, tooth decay is epidemic, according to the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry.
We don’t know what fluoride has done to their brains and bones.
Prescribers fail to inform patients that fluoride is ubiquitous in foods, beverages, some medicines, absorbed from dental products and inhaled in air pollution. In 1991 the US Department of Health and Human Services estimated that total fluoride exposure in fluoridated communities ranges from 1.6 to 6.6 mg/day.
A safe alternative is vitamin D which the American Dental Association once touted. Science proves vitamin D prevents tooth decay. “Vitamin D deficiency is still prevalent in the United States, especially in non-Hispanic black Americans, women, individuals aged 20–29, and during winter,” according to Frontiers in Nutrition
Sodium fluoride supplements must be removed from the market. No American is, or ever was, fluoride-deficient. Fluoride ingestion doesn’t reduce tooth decay.
Early 1900’s dentists theorized that fluoride was a tooth-essential nutrient because Americans drinking natural calcium fluoridated water had fluoride-discolored teeth with less cavities. Unfortunately, they neglected the calcium portion which IS an essential nutrient for teeth.
This is the poorly-done research that gave rise to artificial fluoridation (using sodium fluoride or silicofluorides). Then, fluoridation gave rise to sodium fluoride supplements for children who didn’t live in fluoridated areas. So, it’s not surprising that fluoridation is proven ineffective at reducing tooth decay, too.
THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES
Fluoridation is like the fairy tale, "The Emperor's New Clothes” by Hans Christian Anderson, which told of a supreme ruler who walked the streets naked but yielded so much power, that no one dared tell him he forgot to dress himself.
Fluoridation acceptance was effected by PR and lobbying, not valid science, as was first exposed in the 1951 Proceedings: Fourth Annual Conference of State Dental Directors with the Public Health Service and the Children’s Bureau. Dr. Frank Bull, Wisconsin’s Dental Director, taught those present how to sell artificial fluoridation to naysayers with little or no evidence of safety or effectiveness. The human experimental studies (Newburgh NY, Grand Rapids MI), planned to last 10-15 years had not even been completed yet. In fact, he bragged that he was proselytizing for fluoridation since 1944.
A few quotations from his talk:
This tactic was parroted in 2012 by CDC’s Oral Health Division Director who said white flecks on teeth (mild fluorosis) makes teeth more attractive (at about 16 minutes in this video) One councilor was livid at this comment, he said (at 23 minutes), if he found his daughter’s teeth were marred by a chemical introduced in the water supply, he would wonder what internal effects would be going on. Fluorosis is a symptom of something larger, he said.
More tactical advice from Bull: "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.”
“If you can - - keep fluoridation from going to a referendum.”
"The best technique is the reverse technique, not to refute the thing - but to show where the opposite is true. . .. When they say yes, you say no.”
“In regard to toxicity – I noticed that Dr. Bain used the term ‘adding sodium fluoride.’ We never do that. That is rat poison. You add fluorides.”
“You remind them [the press] how the press has been one of the greatest factors in the promotion of public health. You tell them how fluoridation helps the poor devil who can't afford proper dental care, and all that. You will have a pretty sympathetic press.”
“Don’t use the word "artificial," and don't use sodium fluoride… And certainly don't use the word "experimental."
Similar tactics are used today. Fluoridation has it’s own PR Guru, journalist Matt Jacob who held a free fluoride strategy session near my home. I was asked to leave but not before I received a copy of his slides which advised dental hygienists to promote fluoridation but not to discuss “Harms & Risks” because “opponents are likely to win if the dialogue is trapped inside this message wheel [of Harms & Risks]” This is one of his slides:
Edward Bernays, the father of propaganda, was employed to sell the idea of fluoridation to the American public, according to Christopher Bryson who interviewed Bernays for his book, The Fluoride Deception in the chapter entitled “Engineering Consent.”
Bryson writes: “’You can get practically any idea accepted,’ Bernays told me chuckling. ‘If doctors are in favor, the public is willing to accept it, because a doctor is an authority to most people, regardless of how much he knows, or doesn’t know.’”
In 1988, Chemical & Engineering News wrote an expose on fluoridation; a disturbing revelation was that voices of opposition and reason were ignored from the start.
Also ignored was Edward Groth III, Ph.D., who, after completing his PhD dissertation on public policy and fluoridation reported Fluoridation was adopted more by politicking than by science His chapter is “The fluoridation controversy: which side is science on?” Groth wrote in 1991, “the political profluoridation stance has evolved into a dogmatic, authoritarian, essentially antiscientific posture, one that discourages open debate of scientific issues.”
Authors of a 1999 dental textbook (not the one revised in 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.”
END
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