What’s wrong with fluoridation? FOLLOW THE MONEY

intro by Darlene Sherrell
excerpts from The Secret War and
The Fluoride Conspiracy, by Dr. Geoffrey E. Smith

The U.S. National Academy of Sciences has always measured the safety of fluoridation on the basis of one study of crippling skeletal fluorosis, which was first published in 1935.

EPA’s regulation for the maximum allowable concentration of fluoride in drinking water was established for one purpose – to prevent this disease. However crippling is the end stage of chronic fluoride poisoning. The earlier stages involve gastrointestinal problems, arthritis, and osteoporosis. None of these earlier symptoms are considered in the regulation … only the end stage.

In 1985, when EPA raised the maximum contaminant level to 4 milligrams of fluoride per liter of water, they used dosage figures miscalculated in 1953 by Harold C. Hodge, who was chairman of the NAS committee on toxicology. Hodge’s original figures (20-80 mg/day for 10-20 years) were corrected by Hodge in 1979, and by NAS in 1993. The corrected figures, based on Roholm’s classic study of workers in the cryolite industry, amount to 0.2 to 0.35 milligrams of fluoride per kilogram of body weight per day, for eleven years. When extrapolated over a lifetime of 55 to 96 years, these crippling dosage figures equal 1 milligram of fluoride daily for each 55 pounds of body weight … 0.04 mg/kg/day.

In the early years of water fluoridation, this dosage was not the norm. At that time, water was virtually the only source of fluoride in the American diet. The total intake for most adults was 0.02 mg/kg/day … about one to one and a half milligrams of fluoride daily.

Today, the figure is 0.095 mg/kg/day… from food and drinking water alone … more than 6 milligrams daily.

This increase in ingested fluoride, largely due to the use of artificial fertilizers containing fluoride, pesticide residues, dental products, and modern food processing, has changed a relatively safe dosage into one capable of causing crippling deformities of the spine and major joints, as well as the muscle pain associated with fibromyalgia.

Beer and wine often contain significant quantities of fluoride, as does ordinary tea. Grape juice often contains even larger quantities of fluoride, due to the widespread use of pesticides, which remain on the grape skin. Fluoride in toothpaste can be absorbed through the tissues of the mouth, as well as swallowed accidentally. Many prescription drugs also contain fluoride. None of these items are labeled to indicate the quantity of fluoride added to the daily dietary total.

In other words, what began as a reasonable risk has become the proverbial “straw that breaks the camel’s back.”

Why, then, does fluoridation continue to be an accepted public health practice? Why does the U.S. government offer grants to cities willing to add fluoride to their water supply?

Why, in light of the facts, would so many people and institutions allow the poisoning of an entire population?

In order to understand, we must go back in time, to the origin of water fluoridation, and the financial interests. We must follow the money trail.

Fluorine constitutes 0.065 per cent of the elements of the earth’s crust and is a significant component of the total biogeochemical cycle in which life has evolved. Mankind has always been exposed to fluoride in the environment; and fluoride has always been a trace constituent of our diet and a component of our body fluids, tissues and skeleton.

Indeed, the ubiquitous occurrence of fluoride in nature means that it would be virtually impossible to prepare a diet entirely free of fluoride.

But, until the start of the industrial revolution, most of the flouride in the environment was safely ‘locked-up’ in rocks, coal and clays, and only relatively small amounts were released either as a result of volcanic activity (HF can be detected in volcanic gases), coal burning, or the slow leaching of fluoride into some waters.

Today, most of the fluoride that enters the human body is from man-made sources.

Over the past 50 years, a variety of industries have released into the atmosphere more than 25,000,000 tons of fluoride gases and particulates.

Dentists will argue, correctly, that mankind has always been exposed to fluoride in the environment. We have also been exposed to trace amounts of arsenic, lead, cadmium, and background radiation. The human body can handle certain levels of potentially harmful substances, there’s no doubt about that. But, remember, there are ‘threshold levels’ above which the poison begins to harm the body or the way it functions. Since each one of us is metabolically unique, some people are more sensitive to fluoride than others. Today, a significant proportion of the fluoride that enters the human body is from modern man-made sources, and all the indications are that you and your family are now being over-exposed to what scientists in the Manhattan Project named – the Devil’s Element.

You will have heard of fluoride. It’s the miracle ingredient in your toothpaste, and the chemical they put in public water supplies to prevent cavities in teeth.

You may have heard of hydrogen fluoride. It’s a common, particularly dangerous but relatively unknown air pollutant produced by the most powerful industries including: steel mills, iron foundries, copper, zinc and aluminum smelters, plastics manufacturers, fertilizer works, agro-chemical factories, petro-chemical refineries, brick works, glass factories, coal-burning power stations, and nuclear processing plants. The use of unleaded gasoline puts more fluoride into the air.

If health authorities were to set air pollution standards for hydrogen fluoride which were harmless, then certain key industries in our technologically-oriented society would almost grind to a halt.

This dilemma led to the most bizarre conspiracy of modern times in which captains of industry and national security agencies combined to ruthlessly suppress evidence of the dangers of hydrogen fluoride air pollution; and, cynically used a healing profession – dentistry – to promote an apparently beneficial image for fluoride.

The result is that we live in an increasingly ‘fluoridated’ world. The fluoride in water and toothpaste is potentially harmful; the hydrogen fluoride in contaminated air far more so. Each year, tens of thousands of tons of hydrogen fluoride create an environmental hazard more threatening than global warming or depletion of the ozone layer; and hydrogen fluoride, which can be 1,000 times more harmful than sulphur dioxide, is often a key, but rarely mentioned component of ‘acid rain’.

Few people living in the developed countries of the world can escape exposure to hydrogen fluoride (HF). Workers in more than 60 occupations are now breathing HF-contaminated air, and anyone living in the vicinity of the fluoride-polluting industries is also at risk.

The World Health Organization has estimated that many millions of people live in areas with air pollution problems severe enough to cause tens of thousands of premature deaths each year and leave many more chronically ill and disabled.

During this century three major air pollution disasters emphasized the link between contaminated air, disaster and death. These occurred in the Meuse Valley, Belgium, in 1930; Donora, Pennsylvania in 1948, and London in 1952. The worst began in London on Thursday, 4th December, and lasted three days. During this period, 4,000 people in London died from heart and lung disease. Hydrogen fluoride was the chief killer in all three disasters.

At incredibly low concentrations HF can induce subtle changes in enzyme activities, nerve action potentials and host defence – the immune system.

Hydrogen fluoride at a concentration of just 0.1 parts per billion in air can damage sensitive vegetation; at a concentration of 1 part per billion it can devastate vineyards and orchards. Of all air pollutants which affect farm animals, hydrogen fluoride has caused the most severe and widespread damage. Yet health authorities insist that low-level long-term exposure to HF cannot harm human health!

If there is scientifically acceptable evidence to support these claims about the hazards of HF, how on earth have authorities managed to deceive people for so long? Why do we hear so much about sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide, and so little about hydrogen fluoride?

Because most people have been ‘brain-washed’ into believing that ‘fluoride’ is good for them. After all, it’s put into water and toothpaste to prevent tooth decay. If you can drink water containing 1 part per million fluoride, and use toothpaste containing 1,000 parts per million fluoride, then how could fluoride in air at a level of parts per billion be harmful?

In other words, health authorities pretend that fluoride in the air is the same as fluoride in drinking water and toothpaste. They even present their measurements of hydrogen fluoride in air as – fluoride. When describing water fluoridation, the same tactic is used … sodium fluoride and fluosilicic acid are described as “natural,” avoiding the fact that in areas with “natural” fluoridation, the compounds involved are not these toxic wastes of industry, but a much less toxic compound of fluoride and calcium.

In the 1930’s scientists in Britain, Europe and the United States knew that low levels of HF were harmful. Furthermore, they had identified a visible symptom of chronic HF poisoning.

Children who grew up near industries with fluoride-pollution problems could develop ‘mottled’ teeth; so too could cattle and sheep in the vicinity. The relationship between HF air pollution and ‘mottled’ teeth was an obvious threat to the Captains of Industry. They might argue whether it was sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides or hydrogen fluoride that was responsible for damage to crops and livestock, but no other air pollutants caused mottled teeth.

In 1930 there were plenty of ‘mottled’ teeth amongst children in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, headquarters of the Aluminum Company of America, Alcoa. The head chemist of Alcoa, H.V. Churchill, was given the job of ‘explaining’ the ‘mottled’ teeth in a way that would deflect attention away from Alcoa’s fluoride air pollution problems.

Tooth decay is caused by bacteria – single-celled organisms, which, like all cells – both enamel and vegetable – are extremely sensitive to fluoride which, above certain concentrations, is a potent poison.

The most common bacterium implicated in the cause of caries is Streptococcus mutans. Levels of fluoride above 20 parts per million are lethal to S. mutans; levels as low as 0.19 ppm fluoride can interfere with certain essential metabolic enzymes in the bacterium; and concentrations of fluoride between 4 and 20 ppm can cause S. mutans to – mutate.

In other words, fluoride is an anti-microbial agent of great potency.

The development of a cavity in a tooth proceeds in the following manner. S. mutans (or other cariogenic bacteria) must first gain attachment to the tooth surface. Once attached, and given a suitable food supply, the bacteria thrive and multiply, producing colonies known as dental plaque.

Within the plaque, millions of microbes are consuming carbohydrates and excreting dilute acids as waste products.

These acids begin to eat away – demineralize – the surface layers of the tooth enamel. As a result, the enamel is broken down into its component parts, which include, calcium, phosphate, carbonate and trace amounts of fluoride (which was incorporated into the enamel as it developed).

Gradually, the fluoride level in the plaque fluid builds up. When it reaches 0.19 ppm the metabolism of the bacteria slows down – less food is consumed and fewer acid wastes produced. As the level rises above 4 ppm fluoride, the ‘mutation rate’ of the bacteria increases dramatically. Finally, as the fluoride concentrations in the plaque rises to lethal levels, the bacteria die. And, there may even be some re-mineralization of the enamel.

Wonderful! A cavity has been prevented! But all this has taken place on the surface of the body, not inside it.

Of course fluoride is not the only element that can prevent decay topically. Any potentially toxic element which can become incorporated in tooth enamel, such as the bone-seeking elements – radium, uranium, cadmium, lead and strontium-90, will kill cariogenic bacteria as they are released from enamel as a consequence of the de-mineralizing effect of the microbes’ acid wastes.

Trace amounts of fluoride are present in bone mineral – which is very similar to the mineral in tooth enamel. However, there is a crucial difference between bone and enamel. Once fully formed, tooth enamel is static – it doesn’t undergo metabolic changes. Bone, on the other hand, is constantly being remodelled. This involves ‘old’ bone being resorbed and ‘new’ bone laid down. Cells called osteocytes and osteoclasts dissolve the ‘old’ bone and osteoblasts help form ‘new’ bone.

All bone contains some fluoride, and as old bone is dissolved it is released into the vicinity of the resorbing cells, and evolution has ensured that the bone cells can withstand very low levels of fluoride.

But, just as the cariogenic bacteria can be harmed by the excessive levels of fluoride, so too can bone cells and bone marrow cells – which include the progenitors of immune system cells.

The events described above explain the symptoms associated with both dental and skeletal fluorosis; unfortunately they also raise the spectre of bone cancer and leukemia.

As Dr. Frederick Exner noted: “If American Industry had to stop polluting our air, water, and our countryside with fluoride fumes and fall-out, and to dispose of its fluoride wastes without creating a public hazard, it would cost, not mere millions, but countless billions of dollars. and therein lies the explanation for the utterly relentless drive to fluoridate our water supplies by any means, fair or foul, and many other puzzling aspects of the drive to fluoridate.”

Because of the dental profession’s infatuation with fluoride, tens of millions of people around the world have ‘mottled’ teeth caused by fluoridated drinking water, fluoridated dental health products, or fluoride air pollution. The evidence is inescapable.

Although cosmetic dentistry can cover up the visible damage to teeth, it is costly and highly profitable for dentists. The dental profession’s long­time promotion of fluoride has created a need for cosmetic dentistry … yet for years, dentists argued that by pushing fluoride they would be putting themselves out of business!

Well, guess what … the litigation has now begun.

And once a jury accepts that fluoride can harm developing teeth, the next obvious question will be: If fluoride can damage tooth cells, what other cells and tissues in the human body are being harmed?

The flood-gates will open. Over the next decade it is conceivable that in North America, Britain and Australia, at least fifteen million people will be seeking damages for ‘mottled’ teeth – from toothpaste manufacturers, dentists, and local authorities who permitted fluoridation. A lot of money will be involved; even at $10,000 per person, a pretty modest sum these days, we are talking about $150 BILLION.

Are you beginning to get the picture? The dental profession, federal and state health authorities, and certain important industries, CANNOT admit, after 50 years, that fluoride has been damaging human health; the consequences are unthinkable.

REFERENCES

 

• Smith G.E., The Secret War and the Fluoride Conspiracy, Epeius Publishing Associates, 2 Edna Street, Frankston, Victoria, Australia 3199, 1997.
  
• Diesendorf, M., et. al., New evidence on fluoridation, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, 21(2):187-190, May 1997.
  
• Colgate pays out for teeth ruined by fluoride, by Linda Jackson, The Sunday Telegraph, November 24, 1996.
  
• China takes a deep breath, U.S. News & World Report, September 9, 1996, page 36.
  
• Health Effects of Ingested Fluoride, Subcommittee on Health Effects of Ingested Fluoride, Committee on Toxicology, Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology, Commission on Life Sciences, National Research Council, August 1993.
  
• Toxicological Profile for Fluorides, Hydrogen Fluoride, and Fluorine (F), (April 1993), U.S. Dept. Health and Human Services, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.
  
• Review of Fluoride Benefits and Risks, Department of Health and Human Services, February 1991.
  
• Stannard, et al, Fluoride levels and fluoride contamination of fruit juices, Journal of Clinical Pediatric Dentistry, v 16(1) 1991.
  
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• Smith G.E., Fluoride and Fluoridation. Soc.Sci.Med., 26, (4), 451-462, 1988.
  
• Trace Elements in Human and Animal Nutrition –Fifth Edition, Edited by Walter Mertz, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center, Beltsville, Maryland, 1987.
  
• Zimmerman, Norman, Ph.D., J.D., Senior Toxicologist, Toxic Substance Control Commission (Michigan), The Need for the Determination of the Extent of Total Fluoride Exposure in Community Assessment of the Value of Water Fluoridation, May 1981.
  
• Harold C. Hodge, Ph.D., The Safety of Fluoride Tablets or Drops, Continuing Evaluation of the Use of Fluorides, chapter 11, AAAS Symposium, Boulder, CO, Westview Press, 1979.
  
• Curzon & Specter, An Association Between Strontium in Drinking Water Supplies & Low Caries Prevalence in Man, Archives of Oral Biology 23:317-321, 1978.
  
• Erickson, J. David, Mortality in Selected Cities With Fluoridated and Non-Fluoridated Water, New England Journal of Medicine, May 1978.
  
• Drinking Water and Health, Safe Drinking Water Committee, National Academy of Sciences, NAS/NRC, 1977.
  
• National Research Council of Canada (NRCC No. 16081), Associate Committee On Scientific Criteria for Environmental Quality, Environmental Fluoride 1977.
  
• Prival and Fisher, Adding Fluorides To The Diet, Environment, 16:29-33, 1974.
  
• Air Pollutants Affecting The Performance of Domestic Animals, U.S.D.A. Handbook #380,1972.
  
• Biologic Effects of Atmospheric Pollutants FLUORIDES, Committee on Biologic Effects of Atmospheric Pollutants, Division of Medical Sciences, National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C., 1971.
  
• World Health Organization, International Drinking Water Standards, 1971.
  
• World Health Organization, Fluorides and Human Health, 1970, p. 32-239-240.
  
• Radiological Aspects of A New Type of Bone Fluorosis, , Periostitis Deformans, Radiology 87:1089-1094, 1968.
  
• Sievers, Maurice L., Disease Patterns Among Southwestern Indians, Public Health Reports 81:1082, 1966.
  
• The Fluoride Content of Some Foods and Beverages, Journal of Food Science 31:941,1966.
  
• Endemic Fluorosis, Medicine 42:229, 1963.
  
• Pathologic Studies in Man After Prolonged Ingestion of Fluoride in Drinking Water, Public Health Reports 73:721-723, 1958.
  
• The problem of providing optimum fluoride intake for prevention of dental caries, Food and nutrition Board, Division of Biology and Agriculture, National Academy of Sciences, National Research Council, Pub. #294, November 1953.
  
• Kidney Function & Structure In Chronic Fluorosis, British Journal Experimental Pathology 33:168, 1952.
  
• Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Fluoridation of Water Supplies, Division of Medical Sciences, National Research Council, Nov. 29, 1951.
  
• McClure, Frank J., Non Dental Physiological Effects of Trace Quantities of Fluorine, Journal American College of Dentists, vol 12, p. 50, 1945.
  
• Linsman, Crawford & McMurray, Fluoride Osteosclerosis from Drinking Water, (Case report) Radiology, 40:474 May, 1943 (see erratum, June)
  
• Dean, H. Trendley, Endemic Dental Fluorosis or Mottled Enamel, Journal American Dental Association, 30:1278, 1943.
  
• McClure, Frank J., Ingestion of fluoride and dental caries –quantitative relations based on food and water requirements of children 1 to 12 years old, American Journal Diseases of Children, 66:362, 1943.
  
• Fluorides in Food and Drinking Water, National Institutes of Health Bulletin, 1939.
  
• Removing Stains From Mottled Enamel, Journal American Dental Association,1937.
  
• Roholm, Kaj, Fluorine Intoxication: A Clinical-Hygienic Study With a Review of the Literature and Some Experimental Investigations, 1935, Translated by W.E. Calvert., published by H.K. Lewis & Co., Ltd., (London) 1937.
  
• Dean, H. Trendley, Some Epidemiological Aspects of Chronic Endemic Dental Fluorosis, American Journal of Public Health, 26:567, 1936.

 

We must also consider the concept of a control group in establishing cause and effect. Without a control group, the effect of fluoride gases are confused with the effect of fluoridated water or toothpaste. This camouflage has served the interests of powerful corporations since 1945.