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.