Fluoride: The Hidden Health Hazard
By Cynthia Logan
Pierce County, Washington is up in arms. City councils, water districts and citizen advocacy groups have rallied against the Tacoma-Pierce County Board of Health's recent resolution to mandate fluoridation of most of the county's municipal water supply. Some communities have vowed to challenge the mandate in court. At least one city council has initiated a protective ordinance that would prohibit the addition of any substance intended to treat people rather than water, unless it has FDA approval. One grassroots group, Citizens Opposing Fluoridation in Pierce County, hired a law firm that persuaded the county Board of Health to examine the potential environmental impact before making a decision.
Are those objecting to fluoride radical activists? What's the
big deal-fluoride in water and toothpaste helps make our teeth
healthy and strong-doesn't it? These groups don't think so, and
there's a lot of information out there to support their concerns
that: 1) even in non-fluoridated communities, fluoride ingestion
now exceeds the original "optimal" dosage; 2) the chemicals
used to fluoridate water are neither food nor pharmaceutical grade,
but are more toxic than lead and just slightly less toxic than
arsenic.1
While calcium fluoride is a trace mineral that is sometimes found
in ground-water, the compounds used for fluoridation are industrial
waste products, over 90% of which are either fluorosilicic acid
or its salt form, sodium fluorosilicate, contaminated with toxic
metals and trace amounts of radioactive isotopes. Tom Reeves,
fluoridation promoter with the CDC (Centers for Disease Control),
states that 95% of fluoridation products come from the phosphate
fertilizer industry in central Florida.
Seattle water, supplied by Seattle Public Utilities, comes from
two surface water sources, the Cedar and the S.F. Tolt watersheds.
Both systems use hydrofluorosilicic acid to fluoridate the water.
Buffering chemicals-such as soda ash and lime-must also be added
to counteract the low pH and corrosive quality of the acid. On
the Cedar system, water is disinfected with chlorine and fluoridated
at the Landsburg Plant; the water is disinfected again and lime
is added at the Lake Youngs Plant. On the Tolt system, water is
chlorinated and fluoridated, and lime and soda ash are added for
corrosion control. More than 293,000 gallons of hydrofluorosilicic
acid are added to Seattle's two water supplies each year.
In fluoridated communities, people get about a milligram of fluoride
with every four cups of water they drink. How much are they getting
from other sources? Emily Kalweit, Director of Washington State's
Citizens for Safe Drinking Water, points out, "Fluoride exposure
is already excessive-foods and beverages either processed with
fluoridated water and/or contaminated with fluoride-based pesticides
often contain higher dosages than a doctor can legally prescribe.
Other sources of exposure include toothpaste, dental treatments,
pharmaceuticals and industrial emissions." She notes that,
"Only about half of the fluoride we ingest each day is excreted
through the kidneys. The rest accumulates in our bones, heart,
brain, connective tissues, and the pineal gland."2
Since fluoride is touted as the main reason Americans can flash
healthy smiles at Olympic games, it is fascinating that the cover
story in the July 2000 issue of the Journal of the American Dental
Association stated that current research shows no correlation
between ingesting fluoride and healthier teeth! Read the fine
print on your toothpaste tube lately? It says, "Warning:
keep out of the reach of children under six years of age. If you
accidentally swallow more than used for brushing, seek professional
assistance or contact a Poison Control Center immediately."
Ever answered the phone while brushing your teeth and swallowed
in order to speak? Do your kids like the "bubble gum"
flavors some companies offer? The warning is on the fluoride toothpaste
tubes because the FDA determined that seven-year-old children
routinely swallow approximately half of what they use for brushing,
while younger children swallow even more. And, despite oft-repeated
assurances of safety, fluoride drops and tablets prescribed for
children by doctors have never been evaluated by the FDA for safety
or effectiveness.3
Does your dentist swab your child's teeth with fluoride to prevent
tooth decay? In 1970, a New York City four-year-old went into
convulsions and died directly after receiving topical fluoride
applications to his teeth. Dental personnel claimed he'd had a
heart attack, though neither he nor members of his family had
a history of cardiac abnormality. Interestingly, though, cardiologists
recognize that ingestion of even small amounts of fluoride can
be a possible cause of cardiac arrest.4
Writing in the Earth Island Journal, authors George Glasser and
Andreas Schuld bring up another concern: "The municipal water
your child drinks, bathes and plays in is a complex chemical mixture
of dissolved minerals, contaminants and chemical additives. Chemicals
are added to clarify the water, remove solid particulates and
to disinfect. When fluoride is added to water supplies, 80% of
the 'compound' is hazardous waste. Not only that, but polymers
are added to inhibit corrosion of the water pipes. Since the skin
is the largest organ of the body, the average person absorbs more
contaminants from bathing and showering than from drinking polluted
water." As one EPA scientist put it, "a shower cubicle
can be considered an 'exposure chamber'."
Since children's bath times may range from 45 minutes to two hours,
they are most at risk. As the EPA acknowledged in a June 30, 1998
report, "Children have a greater surface-area-to-body-weight
ratio than adults, which may lead to increased dermal absorption."
The health threat to both children and adults goes beyond bathing
in and drinking fluoridated water. Fluorosilicates do not magically
vanish. Pollution released from washing clothes, evaporation from
clothes dryers and dishwashers remains in the air, where exposure
to volatile contaminants absorbed via the lung would be about
double the same amount from drinking water.
Morton Walker, D.P.M. author of Elements of Danger, Protect Yourself
Against the Hazards of Modern Dentistry and a couple dozen other
health related books, notes that the hazards of fluoride ingestion
are listed in the US Pharmacopoeia. Those hazards were expounded
upon by Dr. John Yiamouyjiannis in his detailed and well-documented
book, Fluoride, The Aging Factor. "Fluoride ingestion causes
increased production of imperfect collagen not just in the teeth,
but throughout the body," he writes. "Cartilage, tendons
and ligaments, which should remain flexible structures in the
body, become hardened and brittle when fluoride is consumed."
While fluoride can increase bone density, the bone created is
significantly weaker and of poor quality, resulting in calcified
joints, arthritis, fused vertebrae and an increase in fractures.5
And, he notes, "at just one part per million [the common
dose in water supplies], fluoride in drinking water or in diet
drinks cuts the activity of the DNA repair enzyme by 50%!"
According to the Department of Health and Human Services, exposure
in fluoridated communities can range as high as 6.6 milligrams
per day. Just 2.3-4.5 mg/day has been shown to decrease the functioning
of the human thyroid.6 Could the practice of water fluoridation
have contributed to the rise in hypothyroidism in this country
over the past fifty years? That department's 1991 review, Fluoride
Benefits and Risks, pointed out that fluoride penetrates the blood-brain
barrier, the brain's first line of defense against toxins. The
peer-reviewed journal Brain Research reveals that aluminum induced
neural degeneration in rats is greatly increased when the animals
are fed low doses of fluoride, which enhances the bio-availability
of aluminum-"conducting" it across the blood-brain barrier.
The study's authors state that, though they were surprised at
the effects created by a small amount of aluminum fluoride in
the rats' drinking water, they were alarmed at the neurotoxic
results of sodium fluoride given at the same levels found in 'optimally'
fluoridated drinking water.7
Recently, the U.S. Army Medical Command, MEDCOM, examined fluoridation.
In charge of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington,
D.C. and three other major installations, MEDCOM was concerned
about fluoridating the water supply of Fort Detrick, Maryland.
They contacted Dr. Phyllis Mullenix, an acknowledged neurotoxicology
expert, and requested her opinion. Her response (May 1999) cited
data from 18 clinical studies. Dr. Mullenix's analysis stated
that "fluoride exposures today are out of control,"
and "there are no advantages to water fluoridation. The risks
today far exceed the hoped for benefit."
Even scientists within the EPA have challenged the safety of fluoridation.
Dr. J. William Hirzy, Senior Vice President of the union that
represents scientists and other professionals at Washington D.C.
EPA Headquarters, testified before the U.S. Senate in June 2000,
asserting that results from the 1990 National Toxicology Program
Cancer Study were fraudulently altered by EPA management. Dr.
Hirzy called for a national review of fluoridation by a Joint
Select Committee of Congress to address excessive fluoride exposure,
to re-examine the altered cancer study and to asses the implications
of recent brain studies and research linking fluoridation chemicals
with elevated blood-lead levels in children.8
The Children's Environmental Health Network (CEHN) reports that
the U.S. has seen "a worrisome increase" in childhood
diseases that may be linked to chemicals in the environment. According
to the CEHN, "The incidence of two types of childhood cancers
has risen significantly over the past 15 years. Acute lymphocytic
leukemia is up 10 percent and brain tumors are up more than 30
percent. Learning disabilities and attention-deficit disorders
also appear to be increasing." In May, 2000 the Greater Boston
Physicians for Social Responsibility published In Harm's Way:
Toxic Threats to Child Development. The report reveals that the
growing number of U.S. children with developmental disabilities
could be caused by widespread exposure to neurotoxic substances.
The report lists fluoride as a chemical that urgently needs re-evaluation:
"Studies in animal and human populations suggest that fluoride
exposure, at levels experienced by a significant proportion of
the population drinking fluoridated water, may have adverse impacts
on the developing brain."
The red flags associated with fluoridation go beyond the effects
of human exposure: numerous studies indicate that fluoride is
toxic to our already threatened salmon and trout species. One
major field study, conducted between 1982 and 1986 on the Columbia
River, demonstrated that relatively low levels of fluoride-just
one-fifth of what is found within fluoridation programs-can negatively
affect salmons' ability to migrate upstream. This same study demonstrated
that water treated with half the dose that fluoridation provides
(0.5 mg/L) resulted in a 55% loss of migrating salmon within a
six-day period.9
With so many studies pointing to possible, probable and proven
maladies resulting from an overabundance of fluoride-a bio-accumulative
toxin known to persist in the environment from one to two million
years-why is the American public "sold on it?"
Astonishingly, fluoride was the key chemical in atomic bomb production.10
Whoa-who says? Du Pont and Manhattan Project executives, that's
who. The Freedom of Information Act resulted in the declassification
of a number of once secret documents-documents that interested
two reporters for the Christian Science Monitor. Commissioned
to write an article about the history of water fluoridation in
the United States, Joel Griffiths and Chris Bryson spent over
a year researching just that. They found that shoddy science and
a deliberately deceptive PR campaign were "recruited"
by the 'Manhattan Project' to protect the U.S. Atomic bomb program
from litigation, because the first lawsuit against the program
was not over radiation, but over fluoride damage!
In 1944, farms famous for their produce and located downwind of
the du Pont chemical factory in Deepwater, New Jersey were victims
of a "pollution incident." Crops blighted, workers eating
the produce vomited for days, while horses and cattle looked sick
and were too stiff to work-symptoms verified by veterinarians
as fluoride poisoning. After the War, the farmers sued du Pont
and the Manhattan Project. In a secret memo, "Manhattan"
stated that, "because of complaints that animals and humans
have been injured by hydrogen fluoride fumes in New Jersey, the
University of Rochester is conducting experiments to determine
the toxic effect of fluoride."
Now this is interesting, for two reasons. First, the University
of Rochester is infamous for its "studies" of radioactive
plutonium, done on patients at Strong Memorial hospital without
their knowledge or consent. Second, most of the "proof"
that fluoride is not only safe, but "beneficial in low doses"
rests on work performed by the University of Rochester, along
with the "Newburgh Demonstration Project." Newburgh,
NY, was the site of one of the nation's earliest fluoridation
experiments. Begun in May of 1945, residents were studied both
by their State Health Department and, secretly, by Manhattan's
"Project F." The final report, written by Manhattan's
chief toxicologist, Harold Hodge and published in the Journal
of the American Dental Association in 1956, concluded that "small
concentrations" of fluoride were safe for U.S. citizens.
Today, Newburgh's Mayor, Audrey Carey expresses the shock and
anger of many city residents: "This reminds me of the Tuskegee
experiment done on syphilis patients down in Alabama." And,
after comparing both the secret and the published versions of
the study, Dr. Mullenix, former head of toxicology at The Forsyth
Institute (a world renowned dental research institution affiliated
with the Harvard Medical School) commented: "This makes me
ashamed to be a scientist. Were all Cold War-era fluoride studies
done like this?" Subsequent studies done by Dr. Mullenix
and her colleagues in the 1990's (including the MEDCOM report
mentioned earlier in this article) showed fluoride to be a powerful
central nervous system toxin which could adversely affect human
brain functioning, even at low doses. This finding has been corroborated
by studies in China; much like effects from lead exposure, children
receiving low-dose fluoride also show diminished IQ. Russian studies
show that people displaying the well-known signs of dental fluorosis-chalky-white,
irregular patches on tooth enamel (sometimes infiltrated with
yellow or brown staining) also "demonstrate dysfunction of
sub-cortical axial structures of the brain."11
One of the arguments by those advocating fluoridation is that
it's needed to help poor kids. But the latest report by the Surgeon
General, Oral Health in America (May 2000) stated: "Eighty
percent of Medicaid kids don't receive dental care, because few
dentists take Medicaid." While that's a decent 'Catch-22,'
Delta Dental, the largest dental insurance company in California,
has it beat by a long shot. Delta advocates fluoridation, and
gives grants to cities that fluoridate, but won't pay for any
dental repair work caused by fluorosis! Medically defined as "chronic
fluorine poisoning," dental fluorosis is a permanent condition
that can be costly to repair, often requiring repeated bleaching
or expensive veneers. Not only can fluoride damage tooth enamel
(Canada currently markets a product that claims to repair the
damage done by fluoridated dental products), but it can also activate
"G proteins," promoting gingivitis and periodontitis,
as well as oral cancer.
While the American Dental Association is now advising its members
to lower the recommended dosage of fluoride prescribed to children,
apparently the organization is concerned that people will neglect
fluoride altogether. Why else would they have bought the domain
names "www.fluoridealert.com" and "www.fluoridealert.net?"
Now, with the slip of a "dot com," web-surfers find
ADA pro-fluoridation sites instead of their intended destination:
http://www.fluoridealert.org.
Are all U.S. city water supplies destined for fluoridation? In
1997, Natick, Massachusetts considered the issue. In order to
sort out conflicting claims, they commissioned a respected team
of scientists to analyze the data and make recommendations. The
widely read analysis, known as The Natick Report, "emphatically"
recommended the water supply "not be fluoridated," and
warned that medical problems could ensue if fluoridation was pursued.
In March 2000, Wilmington, Massachusetts also reviewed both sides
of the issue and decided against it, as did Auburndale, Florida.
Natick, Wilmington and Auburndale aren't alone. Over 80 U.S. cities
have rejected fluoride since 1996, including Modesto, Santa Barbara,
and Santa Cruz, California. Within the past ten years, Bellingham,
Bremerton, Kennewick, Goldendale, Olympia, Spokane, Wenatchee,
and White Salmon have turned down fluoridation. While approximately
67% of American cities fluoridate municipal water, Europe has
almost unanimously rejected it, with only 2% of the entire continent
allowing water fluoridation.
Back at home, Newsweek has repeatedly advised the public that
"political decisions [about fluoridation] were at odds with
expert advice" and "fluoride from your tap may not do
much good-and may cause cancer." In 1992, Newsweek published
another fluoride safety related article, "Is Science Censored,"
which examines how political considerations influence what scientific
studies get published. Its most recent article examines "The
Fluoride Risk."
What can you do? Besides becoming active in Citizens for Safe
Drinking Water, contact your city council and county health board
and state legislators, and let them know you object to having
fluoridation chemicals added to your municipal water supply. Give
them a copy of this magazine and have them read this article.
Consider a water filtration system and ask specifically whether
or not it can remove fluoride, as most do not. Spend some time
on the Internet, reviewing the sites listed in the "resources"
section below. There are many excellent, documented articles that
will give you the facts you need to be an informed citizen. Remember
the statement, "Knowledge is Power?" With the facts
in hand, we can discern the truth and demand clean, safe water
for ourselves, for our cities-and for our children.
Resources
Citizens for Safe Drinking Water: Washington State, Contact: Emily
Kalweit - 360-459-9287 toxicfree@qwest.net
Citizens for Safe Drinking Water: National, Contact: Jeff Green
800-728-3833 greenjeff@cox.net
http://www.Keepers-of-the-Well.org
Fluoride Action Network: http://www.fluoridealert.org
Custom Pure Water Filtration System
Contact: Jim Fox 206.363.0039, http://www.custompure.com
Additional Articles
http://www.salon.com/news/1999/02/17news.html;
A great overview from Salon Magazine
http://www.earthisland.org/eijournal/fluoride/fluoride_index.html;
An overview of environmental information
http://www.nteu280.org;
EPA Union of scientists & professionals who oppose fluoridation
http://www.rachel.org/bulletin;
bulletin.cfm?Issue_ID=2001 good overview article
http://www.fluoridealert.org/wastenot414.htm
- You have to read this one! This was written for the Christian
Science Monitor, but it was so powerful that they could not run
it.
http://www.fluoridealert.org/f-teeth.htm
- fluoride alert overview excellent references
Endnotes
1) Clinical Toxicology of Commercial Products, 5th ed., 1984
2) Safe Water Coalition of Washington State, "Fluoride Has
Adverse Effect on Central Nervous System," Townsend Letter
for Doctors and Patients 155 (June 1996):21.
?) Dr. Paul Connett, Professor of Chemistry, St. Lawrence University,
NY 13617, from "50 Reasons Not To Fluoridate" http://www.fluoridealter.org
3) A recent congressional investigation into fluoridation verified
this fact in a response received from the Food and Drug Administration
in December of 2000.
4) M. McIvor, "Hyperkalemia and Cardiac Arrest from Fluoride
Exposure During Hemodialysis" American Journal of Cardiology
51 (1983) 901-902
5) Danielson, Egger, Lyon and Goodenough, "Hip Fractures
and Fluoridation in Utah's Elderly Population" Journal of
the American Medical Association 258 (1992) 746-48
6) Galletti, P. & Joyet, G. "Effect on Fluorine on Thyroidal
Iodine Metabolism in Hyperthyroidism," Journal of Clinical
Endocrinology; 18:1102-1110 (1958).
7) J.A. Varner, K.F. Jensen, W. Horvath and R.L. Isaacson, Brain
Research 784 (1998).
9) Damkaer DM, Dey DB. Evidence for fluoride effects on salmon
passage at John Day Dam, Columbia River, 1982-1986. North American
Journal of Fisheries Management 9 154-162 1989.
10) See "Fluoride, Teeth and The Atomic Bomb" by Griffiths
and Bryson, summarized by Waste Not #414, available at www.fluoridealert.org/WN-414.htm.
The entire article and links to declassified documents should
be available at this site.
11) http://www.fluoridealert.org/testimony.htm