Fluoridation | Unhealthy, Ineffective & Costly

FLUORIDATION 101

Impure, untested and non-required fluoride chemicals are legislated into most U.S. water supplies, not to kill nasty microbes, but to medicate tap water drinkers who are assured water fluoridation is a safe and effective way to prevent tooth decay. But it is neither.

Water fluoridation is an old-fashioned concept. It is dentistry's continued goal for every American's faucet to dispense 1 milligram fluoride via approximately one quart of water. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) tells us that 2/3 of Americans receive fluoridated tap water. Virtually 100% eat and drink a fluoridated food supply.

Fluoridation, shockingly, is not supported by valid science.

Dentists mistakenly believed swallowed fluoride created decay resistant teeth by becoming part of children's developing enamel; but they were wrong. Fluoride's beneficial effects, if any, are topical according to the CDC and the American Dental Association.

Public health officials predicted fluoride would eradicate tooth decay like vaccines prevent disease; but they were wrong about that, too. They said fluoride was a necessary nutrient and, like vitamin C prevents scurvy, fluoride would prevent tooth decay - wrong again.

The US Surgeon General reports tooth decay is at epidemic proportions among our poor and minority populations, many of whom live in fluoridated communities . While, tooth decay is increasing in US children , the United Kingdom reports an 11% cavity decline in a recent survey and a 15% decline in a previous survey. The UK is only 10% fluoridated and provides low-fluoride children's toothpaste. Only high-dose fluoride toothpaste is available in the U.S. - twice the dosage of the UK's children's fluoridated toothpates.

In fact, non-water-fluoridated Finland, Sweden and Holland cut tooth decay rates by 92%, 82% and 72% respectively over the past 20 years. While in the super-fluoride saturated U.S., public health dentists only managed to cut rates by 50% over the same period (since 1984).

Fluoride supplements are prescribed to children from communities that won't or can't fluoridate their water supply. With outdated and scientifically invalid scientific support, dentists say swallowing l milligram fluoride daily reduces tooth decay without fluoride's adverse effects such as dental fluorosis but they are even wrong about that.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) never approved fluoride ingestion. They were "grandfathered" in before the FDA drug testing laws were enacted. New research shows that children who consume fluoride tablets are more at risk for dental fluorosis. That's why routine fluoride supplementation is no longer recommended by the Canadian Dental Association, the Western Australian Health Authority's Dental Section and the German Scientific Dental Association. And, because of health concerns, Belgium banned the sale of fluoride supplements to prevent tooth decay.

Dental Fluorosis is the only outward sign of fluoride's toxicity to the rest of the body.

Astonishingly, research now shows swallowing fluoride is virtually useless and has unnecessarily exposed millions of Americans to fluoride's adverse side effects such as bone disease and dental fluorosis - white spotted, yellow or brown stained and sometimes pitted and crumbly teeth - which has, not so surprisingly, increased dramatically in American children.(above picture is moderate dental fluorosis).

The Acadeny of General Dentistry and many researchers recommends non-fluoridated water be used to prepare infant formula and foods, to avoid dental fluorosis.

Lack of fluoride does not cause tooth decay. Poor diet does. Fluoride cannot fix a poor diet. But fluoride can and does ruin children's teeth. And no American is or ever was fluoride-deficient.

Some studies show that cavity levels decline after water fluoridation stops. Ironically, African Americans have the most tooth decay and the most dental fluorosis.

There's evidence that fluoride actually causes tooth decay at levels slightly over "optimal."

In fact, dental fluorosis has gotten so bad that some dental experts, such as Dr. Hardy Limeback,say that it costs more to repair teeth damaged by fluoride than would have been saved if water fluoridation actually reduced tooth decay.

In 2004, one dentist charged $18,000 to cover a 16-year-olds white-laced fluoride-damaged teeth with veneers and caps.

HOW WE GOT INTO THIS MESS

At the turn of the last century, many 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 fluoride in the water. We've been told for years that these ugly teeth resisted decay but a recently discovered book (April 2004)via the internet gives conflicting details.

Only 28.5% of 12- to 14-year-olds were cavity-free in Colorado Springs, Colorado, with 2.6 ppm naturally fluoridated water, 75% had fluorosis, according to a 1948 study ("Fluorine in Drinking Water Its Effect on Dental Caries," by Francis A. Arnold).

Also, Hereford, Texas, was touted as the "town without a toothache" because high levels of natural water fluoride discolored the townfolk's teeth but, we were told, they didn't have any or few cavities. However, 12 to 14-year-olds living in Hereford, Texas, where the water was naturally fluoridated at 3.1 ppm, 100% had dental fluorosis; but only 38% were caries free.

These statistics are not impressive.

But maybe they were better than other cities without fluoride or calcium, dentists and/or sound nutrition.

But that didn't stop well-meaning but misguided dentists (who probably didn't, and still don't, read the actual studies )to assume the fluoride also caused the discolored teeth allegedly to resist decay. However, what they overlooked is significant. The water supply was also very high in calcium and magnesium, essential nutrients we now know makes teeth strong.

Also the population studied in Colorado Springs was healthy and wealthy, which drew dentists from the East striving to make their own fortune. At the same time, poor residents of Appalachia in the East were losing teeth to decay without any dentist around to treat them which is still the case today

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 totally ingnore calcium (and the gereral health of people with great teeth), and see if adding artificial fluoride to a town's water makes any difference or will make people sick.

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

Of course, researchers declared fluoridation a success after only five years, even though the teeth of the children born into the experiment had not 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. Adults were never examined for ill effects.

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. Kingston never fluoridated. Recent studies show tooth decay and dental fluorosis is higher in fluoridated Newburgh.

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, carries lead, arsenic, and other contaminants to a faucet near you.

The silicofluorides have never been safety tested in animals or humans. With the American children as guinea pigs, researchers find that silicofluorides increase children's lead absorption and higher blood lead levels are linked to more tooth decay. And the U.S. National Toxicology Program is just beginning to study silicofluorides for human ingestion some 50 plus years after it's been dumped into most Americans drinking water.

Other studies link fluoride to bone fractures, lowered IQ, thyroid disfunction and more.

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.

US children are overdosed with fluoride whether rich or poor, healthy or malnourished from various sources. You would think dentists would heed the advice reported in their dental journals - to cut back on fluoride use. But instead dentists are lobbying legislators all over the US to fluoridate more water supplies - even when the people have voted against it. But educated individuals are fighting back. In the past two elections, fluoridation failed miserably in the polls.

Meanwhile, the American Dental Association reported to the press on June 16, 2000 that they have a new cavity fighting tool - calcium. January 2006, researchers tout Cavistat, a calcium containing nutrient substance that reduces cavities better than fluoride and without fluoride.

And, instead of putting themselves out of business as they once predicted, today’s dentists make much more money than physicians while working less days and less hours