THE STRAIGHT SCOOP ON FLUORIDE
As you can imagine after reading the quotes posted below, coming out against one of healthcare’s sacred cows — in this case fluoridation of municipal water supplies — will not earn you brownie points with the scientific medical community. Nor will it get you sainted, knighted, or given a promotion. What you can expect is to be vilified as a conspiracy-loving kook or non-scientific weirdo — a quackpot with an agenda. At the very least you’ll be convicted in the court of public opinion (or at least accused) of publishing “bad” science.
What’s the truth about fluoride? After studying both sides of this hot-button issue, you’ll have to decide for yourself.
“Disorders of neurobehavioural development affect 10–15% of all births, and prevalence rates of autism spectrum disorder and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder seem to be increasing worldwide. Subclinical decrements in brain function are even more common than these neurobehavioural developmental disorders. All these disabilities can have severe consequences — they diminish quality of life, reduce academic achievement, and disturb behaviour, with profound consequences for the welfare and productivity of entire societies.
Although genetic factors have a role, they cannot explain recent increases in reported prevalence, and none of the genes discovered so far seem to be responsible for more than a small proportion of cases. Thus, non-genetic, environmental exposures are involved in causation…. Strong evidence exists that industrial chemicals widely disseminated in the environment are important contributors to what we have called the global, silent pandemic of neurodevelopmental toxicity….
David P Rall, former Director of the US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, once noted that ‘if thalidomide had caused a ten-point loss of IQ instead of obvious birth defects of the limbs, it would probably still be on the market.'” From the journal Lancet Neurology (Neurobehavioural Effects of Developmental Toxicity)
“The American Association for Community Dental Programs’ primary goal is to support the efforts of those serving the oral health needs of vulnerable populations at the community level. In view of our commitment to preventing oral diseases and improving access to services for the public, we read with interest Grandjean and Landrigan’s Review on neurobehavioral effects of developmental toxicity….
No credible scientific studies show a relation between fluoride consumption and IQ levels; however, several have shown that fluoride ingested at recommended levels is not harmful… Unfortunately, Grandjean and Landrigan’s Review has been aggressively and improperly used by anti-fluoridationists to frighten the public about the effects of fluoridation, a well-established public health measure that has been shown to be cost-effective and safe.” A response by dentists in Lancet Neurology (Neurodevelopmental Toxicity: Still More Questions than Answers) to the above-mentioned study.
“In 2006, two researchers, Philippe Grandjean and Philip Landrigan, conducted a review of existing studies and posited that certain industrial chemicals could contribute to neurobehavioral effects. It appears that they have updated their 2006 work….. The causes of neurobehavioral disorders like autism, attention deficit disorder and childhood brain development are topics that unquestionably deserve further study and review.
However, this report has several serious flaws that undermine its credibility and usefulness in advancing understanding of these important issues. First, the report ignores the fundamental principles of exposure and potency. In other words, the authors disregard important factors like how chemicals are used, whether children are actually exposed to them, at what level they are exposed and for how long…..” From American Chemistry dot com (Authors Ignore Fundamental Principles of Science in Lancet Paper, Opt for Alarmism)
“False: Studies — even ones published in prestigious journals — do not themselves ‘declare’ or ‘classify’ anything as a neurotoxin; governmental organizations, using published research and other data, make determinations about a chemical’s danger and regulate it accordingly. In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency maintains a list of chemicals approved as non-toxic under the Toxic Substances Control Act, and they regulate standards for levels of human-made and natural contaminants in water under the Safe Drinking Water Act.
For food or cosmetic products, the Food and Drug Administration makes similar determinations under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.” From Snopes (Did a New Study Officially Declare That Fluoride Is a Neurotoxin?). Do you trust our government or any of their alphabet soup of watchdog organizations (FDA, CDC, EPA, NIH, etc, etc)?
Why might FLUORIDE be something you would want to avoid exposing yourself and your family to on a regular basis? Besides what you’ll find in the link, four years ago Lancet Neurology published a study called Neurobehavioural Effects of Developmental Toxicity. After discussing known neurotoxicants, the authors, Dr. Grandjean from Harvard’s Department of Environmental Health, and Dr. Landrigan of New York’s Icahn School of Medicine, suggested that six more chemicals be added to the list.
“Neurodevelopmental disabilities, including autism, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, dyslexia, and other cognitive impairments, affect millions of children worldwide, and some diagnoses seem to be increasing in frequency. Industrial chemicals that injure the developing brain are among the known causes for this rise in prevalence. Since 2006, epidemiological studies have documented six additional developmental neurotoxicants…..”
While five of the six are not well known by the general public (most probably have not heard of them or like me, couldn’t spell them if offered a million bucks), fluoride is not only known by everyone, it’s known because it’s supposed to be healthy; protective against DENTAL CARIES (the medical word for cavities). Because of this, it’s not only well known, but found in virtually all commercial toothpastes as well as the drinking water in most American municipalities. The American Dental Association’s official statement on fluoride (ADA Fluoridation Policy: American Dental Association Supports Fluoridation) contains this snippet…
“The American Dental Association unreservedly endorses the fluoridation of community water supplies as safe, effective and necessary in preventing tooth decay. This support has been the Association’s position since policy was first adopted in 1950.”
This begs the question; what brought us to this point? What brought us to the point where fluoride is thought of as a necessity — particularly in light of the explosion of the the neurological developmental issues that were specifically mentioned earlier; AUTISM and ADD/ADHD? Sort of like my post on THE FLEXNER REPORT (and with many of the same actors), fluoride’s history is full of intrigue, deception, corporate greed, and CYA, mostly from the manufactures of ALUMINUM — a massively neurotoxic element in and of itself. Follow along as I take you on a short journey through the history of fluoride.
FLUORIDE’S “OFFICIAL” HISTORY
If you read the “official” history from our governments NIH website (The Story of Fluoridation) you’ll not only read how naturally-occurring fluoride was the cause of the so called “Colorado brown stain” (teeth affected by fluorosis that left them discolored and mottled), but they even briefly mentioned its connection to the aluminum industry, discussing the effects of aluminum manufacturing on teeth (it’s processed from a mineral called bauxite).
“The answer came when McKay and Dr. Grover Kempf of the United States Public Health Service (PHS) traveled to Bauxite, Arkansas — a company town owned by the Aluminum Company of America (ALCOA) — to investigate reports of the familiar brown stains. The two discovered something very interesting: namely, the mottled enamel disorder was prevalent among the children of Bauxite, but nonexistent in another town only five miles away.”
The history went on to talk about research by Dr. H. Trendley Dean, head of the Dental Hygiene Unit at the National Institute of Health as pertaining to dental caries and the famous Grand Rapids, Michigan fluoridation experiment (it was said to have cut the rate of dental caries in children by over half). The authors concluded by lauding the benefits of fluoridation as one of the great medical achievements of the modern era and referring to it as “a giant scientific breakthrough that promised to revolutionize dental care, making tooth decay for the first time in history a preventable disease for most people.”
Sounds great — all warm and cuddly — one of those feel-good stories you tell your children around the campfire (cough cough, as you wonder why if fluoride is so good, why do so many people have such bad teeth?). In the immortal words of the late Paul Harvey, “and now it’s time for the rrrrrrest of the story.” As I’ve shown you in scores of posts filed under the oxymoronical title of EVIDENCE-BASED MEDICINE, money rules. When you let big business do their own research, whether it’s Big Pharma, Big Tobacco, Big Oil, Big Chemical, Big Seed, Big Ag, etc, etc, etc, the one constant that you can hang your hat on is that it cannot be trusted. Period.
What’s arguably worse, however, is why. The watchdog agencies created by the government to keep an eye on the “Bigs,” have themselves been bought and paid for by industry (HERE). For example; even though it was on their website a few years ago, the CDC’s statement (“In children younger than 8 years of age, combined fluoride exposure from all sources-water, food, toothpaste, mouth rinse, or other products-contributes to enamel fluorosis.“) is nowhere to be found — it’s been removed.
Thus, we can’t be surprised that the actual history of fluoride is far different than the NIH’s history. I’m going to give you the condensed version in a moment, but before I do, I want to briefly discuss what fluoride is, what it does, and how it works.
FLUORIDE’S NEUROTOXICITY
“Fluoride is a toxic and reactive element… Fluoride can accumulate in the body, and it has been shown that continuous exposure to it causes damaging effects on body tissues, particularly the nervous system directly without any previous physical malformations. Several clinical and experimental studies have reported that fluoride induces changes in cerebral morphology and biochemistry that affect the neurological development of individuals as well as cognitive processes, such as learning and memory.
Fluoride can be toxic by ingesting one part per million (ppm), and the effects are not immediate, as they can take 20 years or more to become evident. The prolonged ingestion of fluoride may cause significant damage to health and particularly to the nervous system. Therefore, it is important to be aware of this serious problem and avoid the use of toothpaste and items that contain fluoride, particularly in children as they are more susceptible to the toxic effects of fluoride.”From the June 2011 issue of Neurologia (Effects of the Fluoride on the Central Nervous System)
“Children in high-fluoride areas had significantly lower IQ scores than those who lived in low-fluoride areas. Subgroup and sensitivity analyses also indicated inverse associations [higher fluoride, lower IQ]….. The results support the possibility of an adverse effect of high fluoride exposure on children’s neurodevelopment.” From the October 2012 issue of Environmental Health Perspectives (Developmental Fluoride Neurotoxicity: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis). This is the 27-study meta-analysis that Drs. Grandjean and Landrigan largely based their conclusions from and were so roundly criticized for.
“Choi and senior author Philippe Grandjean, adjunct professor of environmental health at Harvard School of Public Health, and their colleagues collated the epidemiological studies of children exposed to fluoride from drinking water. The China National Knowledge Infrastructure database also was included to locate studies published in Chinese journals. They then analyzed possible associations with IQ measures in more than 8,000 children of school age; all but one study suggested that high fluoride content in water may negatively affect cognitive development.
The average loss in IQ was reported as seven IQ points for commonly used IQ scores. Some studies suggested that even slightly increased fluoride exposure could be toxic to the brain. Thus, children in high-fluoride areas had significantly lower IQ scores than those who lived in low-fluoride areas. The children studied were up to 14 years of age, but the investigators speculate that any toxic effect on brain development may have happened earlier, and that the brain may not be fully capable of compensating for the toxicity.
‘Fluoride seems to fit in with lead, mercury, and other poisons that cause chemical brain drain,’ Grandjean says. ‘The effect of each toxicant may seem small, but the combined damage on a population scale can be serious, especially because the brain power of the next generation is crucial to all of us.'”From the Harvard School of Public Health News (Impact of Fluoride on Neurological Development in Children). This article is addressing the previous study as it was a joint effort by researchers from China and Harvard.
“NTP is currently conducting a systematic review to evaluate potential neurobehavioral effects from exposure to fluoride during development that includes consideration of human epidemiology, additional experimental animal studies, and mechanistic data.” From our own government’s National Toxicology Program
For starters, I’m not arguing that fluoride doesn’t on some level prevent cavities — a fact that was noted years ago in areas where there was high levels of natural fluoridation from the ground water in certain areas. But at what cost? This issue of “cost” becomes especially relevant once you learn from several authors writing in the March 2016 issue of Materia Sociomedica (Fluoride: A Review of Use and Effects on Health) that putting fluoride in the water supply is not even the optimal method of fluoridation. Why not? Because fluoride works best as a topical — as something to be applied to the tooth’s surface (“The most important action of fluoride is topical“).
Beyond that, we see that it does not take very much to have an effect (not only on your teeth, but on your brain and THYROID as well). “Fluoride occurs naturally in our environment that we consume it in small amounts.” Great to know, but what is a small amount and is naturally-occurring fluoride the same fluoride that’s found in toothpaste or industrial waste? A very short and simple explanation of the difference in types of fluoride (all forms of fluoride are not the same) can be found HERE.
Although most municipalities are still fluoridating water at between 1 and 1.2 parts per million (ppm), according to the July 2015 issue of Government Health Reports (U.S. Public Health Service Recommendation for Fluoride Concentration in Drinking Water for the Prevention of Dental Caries) “PHS now recommends an optimal fluoride concentration of 0.7 milligrams/liter (mg/L),” meaning that we’ve been using significantly more fluoride than necessary. When you watch the videos of the barrels of fluoride being dumped into the Grand Rapids water supply just before the end of WWII, it sort of makes you wonder what sort of dose those children were getting.
HOW DOES FLUORIDE WORK?
“Shall the City of Houston continue adding fluoride (hydrofluosilic acid) in the municipal water? The water is currently treated as recommended and approved by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources and the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services?” From the July 6 issue of the Houston Herald (Ballot Wording OK’d for Fluoride Ballot Issue) Houston, Missouri is 45 minutes away from us.
“Acute toxicity can occur after ingesting one or more doses of fluoride over a short time period which then leads to poisoning. Today, poisoning is mainly due to unsupervised ingestion of products for dental and oral hygiene and over-fluoridated water.” From the Materia Sociomedica study below
The chief anti-cavity mechanism of fluoride is that it slows the breakdown of the mineral that makes up tooth enamel, calcium hydroxyapatite, and that furthermore, as I showed you a moment ago, the main action of fluoride is topical. In other words, the point of using fluoride to prevent cavities is to get it on your teeth (key word being “on“). Dentists do this with the fluoride mouthwash they provide after a cleaning. Toothpastes do this by adding fluoride (and then putting warnings on the label to let us know how toxic the stuff really is.
WARNINGS: Keep out of reach of children under 6 years of age. If more than used for brushing is accidentally swallowed get medical help immediately or contact a Poison Control Center right away. Do Not Swallow, Supervise children as necessary until capable of using without supervision. Use a pea-sized amount in children under six years old.
Knowing that fluoride is really a topical treatment (“In the last 30 years, studies have shown that the maximum anti-caries benefits of fluoride are primarily through topical use and direct contact on the tooth surface“) why would it be recommended for the water supply? Easy; the purpose is to create blood levels of fluoride so that all bodily fluids, saliva included, contain fluoride, which then “bathes” the teeth in fluoride. What should blood levels of fluoride be? This study (remember that it’s a pro-fluoride study) said that blood levels should never be over .06 ppm, with a normal or targeted range of .01 ppm.
This means that if your municipality is fluoridating the water supply at 1-1.2 ppm (standard), it’s not only as much as double the latest recommendations, it’s at least 100 times higher than targeted blood levels. It’s important to grasp, however, that topical is not the only way that fluoride works to prevent caries.
According to this study, even though the most important effect of fluoride is related to preventing demineralization of the hydroxyapatite of the enamel layer, like it’s close relative chlorine (they are both HALIDES that live in the same row on the Periodic Table and are known destroyers of thyroid function) it also has antimicrobial effects. “It has also been proposed, that the fluoride ion can affect the physiology of microbial cells, which can indirectly affect demineralization. Fluoride ions affect bacterial cells through several mechanisms, one of them being a direct inhibition of cellular enzymes.”
For the portion of the population who is overly GERM-PHOBIC, this might sound wonderful. But for those who grasp the importance of the MICROBIOME as related to overall health, you can see how this could be problematic in more ways than one (see renowned dentist, DR. WESTON PRICE’S work).
THE HISTORY OF “MEDICINAL / THERAPEUTIC” FLUORIDE
“Fluoride defenders will say there are two stories; there’s the industrial story and there’s the dental story and ne’er the twain shall meet. It’s not true. The stories are braided very tightly and very profoundly. Braided from the beginning…..” Award winning BBC journalist, Christopher Bryson, from his short video documentary based on his book, Fluoride Deception (video is less than half an hour long and is found below
Understanding the fluoride controversy is, like many similar controversies, a house of mirrors. Nothing is as it appears and nothing is as it seems — especially with both private and government entities telling us how wonderful it really is and using “science” to back their assertions. Rather than me taking the time to lay out the history for you, I am going to let others, including Bryson (the author of the quote above), do it for me.
There are two things I want you to remember as you follow along. The first is that in similar fashion to most neurotoxic substances, the effects are largely accumulative. Secondly, the form of fluoride added to the water supply is not the same as the mineral found naturally in our environment. Watching Bryson’s short documentary (The Fluoride Deception — 1st video, second row) was both eye opening and unnerving — particularly in light of what we know about Evidence-Based Medicine in general (be sure and watch him reveal the INVISIBLE & ABANDONED studies — studies that were buried by industry).
For those of you struggling with any number of health-related issues, be sure and take a look at my post of HELPFUL HINTS for starting the process of taking your life back. Also be sure and read THESE WARNINGS about fluoride by former government cancer scientist, Dr. Dean Burk. If you appreciate our post, be sure to spread the message via FACEBOOK, with a special emphasis on reaching people from Houston, Missouri — the county seat of our next door neighbors in Texas County — as they will soon be voting on whether to remove the fluoride from their water supply.
