Forum Post: Corporate Influence in Goverment Policy: Public Water Fluoridation

"Water fluoridation is the single largest case of scientific fraud, promoted by the government, supported by taxpayer dollars, aided and abetted by the ADA and the AMA, in the history of the planet." -- DDS President of the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology, David Kennedy. Did you know fluoride is legally too toxic to dump but good enough to drink? Yes, fluoride is probably recommended by your dentist and dentists are good people in respectable white coats, who care for our well-being. Of course we want to put our trust in them. But wait. Let’s not forget that up until fairly recent times DDT and asbestos were considered safe and smoking was actually considered good for you! Cigarettes were even recommended by doctors in commercial advertisements up until the 1950’s! Of course, in retrospect we see there were corporate interests at work in promoting these beliefs, and it took some time for the truth to become obvious and the public to become outraged. Still, we imagine that today we are so much more sophisticated than we were back then and that if water fluoridation were harmful; we would know it by now. The fact is we already do. Thousands of scientists, doctors, and even dentists have gone before congress to testify about the dangers of fluoride. Their warnings have gone unheeded.
• Fluorides are listed by the US Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry as among the top 20 of 275 substances posing the most significant threat to human health. Fluoride is designated a Class 2 pesticide by the EPA and according to the handbook of Clinical Toxicology of Commercial Products, fluoride is more poisonous than lead and just slightly less poisonous than arsenic. • The chemicals used to fluoridate water supplies are largely hazardous by-products of the fertilizer industry and do not occur naturally in nature. Believe it or not, hydrofluorosilicic acid and sodium silicofluoride, which are the industrial waste products commonly referred to as fluoride, are labeled toxic. Much of it is recovered from the scrubbing solution that scours toxins from smokestacks at phosphate fertilizer plants. And as waste products, they often contain other toxins, such as arsenic, lead, aluminum, uranium and radium. Chemical companies are not allowed to release the fluoride waste into the air, land, or waterways because of its toxicity. Yet they are allowed sell it at a profit to local municipalities to pour into the public water supply. • Fluoride is big business, costing tax payers hundreds of millions of dollars a year. In these hard times, in which so many essential services are being cut, larger cities can pay chemical corporations millions of dollars every year for fluoridation. Recently, some municipalities have chosen to stop their water fluoridation programs not because of medical or ethical considerations, but for economic reasons. They have chosen to keep their teachers, police, and firefighters instead.
• There is no federal agency that either regulates the practice of water fluoridation, or the chemicals used, or accepts liability for damages. The Environmental Protection Agency is charged with setting the standards of water fluoridation levels but in their own words, the EPA states that “…there are no Federal safety standards which are applicable to additives, including those for use in fluoridating drinking water.” (US EPA Fluoride: Regulatory Fact Sheet,1997) In contradiction of the agency’s official position, the EPA’s own Headquarters Professionals’ Union of Scientists is now calling for an immediate halt to water fluoridation in the U.S. as well as a Congressional investigation into fluoride’s adverse effects, citing the EPA’s compromised position due to political pressures. • Fluoridation chemicals have never been required to undergo randomized clinical trials for safety or effectiveness by any regulatory agency in the world. The U.S. FDA classifies fluoride as an "unapproved drug." And yet fluoride has been recognized as being harmful to plants, animals, and people for over a century. In the 1800’s fluoride was used as a rat poison and insecticide. According to a 1972 report from the US Department of Agriculture, “airborne fluorides have caused more worldwide damage to domestic animals than any other air pollutant." Fluoride proved to be one of the most costly chemical liabilities to American industry from the 1940s through to the 1960s. Fluoride was promoted as a medicine rather than a poison by studies paid for by the polluting industries and became national policy in the 1950’s in spite of the fact that no comprehensive medical studies had been conducted at that time. • Fluoridation is a violation of the individual's right to informed consent to medication. Fluoride is the only chemical added to drinking water for the purpose of medication; ostensibly to prevent tooth decay. All other treatment chemicals are added to improve the water's safety. Regardless of the growing controversy about the safety and efficacy of water fluoridation, most Americans would agree that the government does not have the authority to mandate medical treatment for the entire population, en masse. • Swallowing fluoride provides little or no benefit to the teeth. According to the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention, fluoride works best when applied topically and not via the systemic exposure of ingestion. In fact, a recent study found no relationship between the amounts of fluoride ingested and level of tooth decay. While water fluoridation is often credited with causing the reduction in tooth decay that has occurred in the US over the past 50 years, however the same reductions in tooth decay have occurred in all western countries, most of which have never added fluoride to their water, according to comprehensive data from the World Health Organization. 97% of Western Europe has refused this outmoded, unethical, and harmful practice, and allow individuals the right to choose, or refuse fluoride. • We receive an uncontrolled dose regardless of age, body mass, existing health conditions, and individual sensitivity. Topical treatment in the form of fluoridated toothpaste is universally available, so it is absurd to ingest fluoride and expose all the tissues of the body to its proven harmful effects. In fact, fluoride in toothpastes comes with a warning to seek medical attention if swallowed! • Fluoride is a known toxin, not an essential nutrient. No biological process in animals or humans has been shown to depend on it. On the contrary, it is known that fluoride can interfere with many important biological processes and vital cellular constituents. This makes fluoride potentially toxic even at low doses. Fluoride has actually been found to damage teeth and bones because it interferes with calcium formation. The effects can mimic the symptoms of arthritis. Fluoride can diminish bone strength and increase the risk for bone fracture. A study from a team of Harvard scientists has found a connection between fluoride and a serious form of bone cancer in male children. • Today, according to US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 32% of all American children have been overexposed to fluoride and are now impacted with some form of dental fluorosis. Fluorosis is damage to the enamel involving discoloration; white flecks or brown patches, and/or mottling. This is caused by overexposure to fluoride. The fluoride interferes with calcium formation in the tooth’s enamel and actually significantly weakens the long-term strength of the tooth. This is one symptom of overexposure to fluoride. However, many internal effects of fluoride go unrecognized. • There are now 24 international studies that show a relationship between fairly modest exposure to fluoride and reduced IQ in children. Two of these studies suggest that the threshold for damage may be reached at fluoride levels similar to those used in water fluoridation. • The American Dental Association advises that parents should avoid giving babies fluoridated water. Human breast milk is very low in fluoride. Because of their sole reliance on liquids for their food intake, infants consuming formula made with fluoridated water have the highest exposure to fluoride, by bodyweight, in the population. A bottle-fed baby in a fluoridated area gets up to 250 times more fluoride than a breast-fed baby. • Fluoride is an endocrine disrupter and is implicated in infertility and other hormonal problems, including hypothyroidism. Drinking fluoridated water may reduce the function of the thyroid among individuals with low-iodine intake. Reduction of thyroid activity can lead to loss of mental acuity, arthritic symptoms, depression and weight gain. These ailments have become a national epidemic over the past few decades. The research into how fluoride became public policy leads back to the Mellon family, who were the founders of Mellon Bank and then, Mellon Institute, from whence came the modern reinvention of fluoride as a prevention against dental decay. As early as 1940, Dr. Gerald Cox of the Mellon Institute was aggressively promoting the addition of fluoride to public water systems to reduce tooth decay. Known up until then as poison and a hazard of great public concern, this was the “discovery” that literally turned 'garbage into gold'. As it happens, the Mellon family also founded the American Aluminum Company (Alcoa), the largest producer of the waste toxin, sodium fluoride, which up to this point was very costly in terms of safe disposal. For more information, watch the documentary, The Fluoride Deception: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXkCDIcyq6c To find out what’s going on in the U.S. and what communities are doing to stop this, please contact the Fluoride Action Network at www.fluoridealert.org