I recently interviewed Dr. Paul Connett, who is trained as a chemist and specializes in environmental chemistry. He is known throughout the world as a leader in the movement against water fluoridation because of his knowledge base, and during our sit-down, he shared the information I'll cover in this article.
Amazingly, the United States is only one of eight countries in the entire developed world that fluoridate more than 50 percent of their water supply. (The other seven are Australia, Colombia, Ireland, Israel, Malaysia, New Zealand and Singapore.) In Europe, Ireland is the only country that fluoridates more than 50 percent of its drinking water, and England fluoridates 10 percent. Most of mainland Europe is not fluoridated, and yet, according to World Health Organization data, their teeth are just as good, if not better, than those of Americans.
One of the central challenges in this debate is that the United States claims to be one of the most advanced scientific countries in the world, yet we're still engaging in a practice that is questionable at best, and harmful at worst.
This interview is part of an ongoing effort to help provide you with the tools to take action in three primary areas, and help you understand that indeed you can make a real difference in this area.
First Canada, Then the U.S.
Canada also fluoridates about 40 percent of its drinking water, and there, the efforts to eliminate fluoride seem quite optimistic. The fluoridation there is concentrated in Alberta and Ontario, so Connett believes that if Ontario stops water fluoridation, the entire country of Canada could conceivably get rid of it in short order.
In the U.S., the current focus of our campaign is on two specific communities: San Diego, California, and Austin, Texas. These areas already have leadership backing this cause, along with favorable media support.
Is Water Fluoridation Really in the Best Interest of Public Health?
As you may know, the theory behind the introduction of fluoride in your water supply initially seems beneficial: to reduce the incidence of dental caries in children. However, the health dangers of fluoride are so numerous that they far outweigh any potential benefit to your teeth.
"First of all, water fluoridation is very bad medicine," Dr. Connett says, "because once you put it in the water, you can't control the dose. You can't control who gets it. There is no oversight. You're allowing a community to do to everyone what a doctor can do to no one, i.e., force a patient to take a particular medication."
Prior to 1945, when communal water fluoridation in the U.S. took effect, fluoride was actually a known toxin. For example, a 1936 issue of the Journal of the American Dental Association stated that fluoride at the 1 ppm (part per million) concentration is as toxic as arsenic and lead. Years later, the Journal of the American Medical Association stated in their September 18, 1943 issue that fluorides are general protoplasmic poisons that change the permeability of the cell membrane by certain enzymes.1 Additionally, an editorial published in the Journal of the American Dental Association on October 1, 1944 stated, "Drinking water containing as little as 1.2 ppm fluoride will cause developmental disturbances. We cannot run the risk of producing such serious systemic disturbances. The potentialities for harm outweigh those for good."
(For a list of studies showing the numerous health hazards associated with fluoride, compiled by Dr. David Kennedy D.D.S., see this link.)
Secondly, water fluoridation is both unnecessary and completely avoidable. Ending water fluoridation is as easy as turning off a spigot. It's not a matter of having to devise costly equipment to somehow take it out of the water supply.
Today, even promoters of fluoridation concede that the major benefits are topical; fluoride works from the outside of the tooth, not from inside of your body, so why swallow it? Why put it in the drinking water when you could just brush your teeth with fluoridated toothpaste if you choose? Please note that I do not believe that you should use fluoride in your toothpaste, but I am just emphasizing the point that it might work topically but does not work at all when you swallow it. There are far better options for decreasing tooth decay than using a topical poison.
Third, water fluoridation is ineffective. There is practically no difference in tooth decay between fluoridated and non-fluoridated countries, and no difference between states that have a high or low percentage of their water fluoridated.
Meanwhile, fluoride can cause significant harm.
"We know that 32 percent of American children have been overexposed to fluoride," Connett says, "because you have this telltale sign of dental fluorosis, which in its mildest form is little white specs. But when it gets more serious, it affects more of the surface of your teeth and it becomes colored; yellow, brown and orange mottling of the teeth."
Promoters of fluoridation scoff at these signs, saying that they're "just cosmetic." But, since we already know that water fluoridation does not effectively reduce dental caries, this is an unnecessary cosmetic defect, and, worse yet, it is a worrisome indication that your body has been overexposed to fluoride. If it's having a detrimental, visual effect on the surface of your teeth, you can be virtually guaranteed that it's also damaging something else inside your body, such as your bones.
"The teeth are the window to the bones," Connett says. "If you've seen the damage to the teeth, what damage can you not see?"
Bone is in fact living tissue that is constantly being replaced through cellular turnover. Bone building is a finely balanced, complicated process. Fluoride has been known to disrupt this process ever since the 1930s. We have huge concerns about the potential of fluoride to damage the bone and cause symptoms like arthritis and making them more brittle and more prone to fracture.
Water Fluoridation Is an Assault on Your Freedom of Choice!
"We now have 23 studies from four different countries -- Mexico, Iran, India and China -- which indicate that moderate exposure to fluoride is lowering I.Q. in children," Connett says. "The lowest level at which they estimate this is happening is 1.9 parts per million of fluoride. If you've got an effect at 1.9 parts per million with a few hundred children in the study, then there is not enough margin of safety to protect every child that's being exposed to fluoride."
You need a much larger margin of safety to protect children living in fluoridated communities! Meanwhile, the U.S. has not yet studied the impact of fluoride on I.Q..
"The countries which are fluoridated are doing practically no health studies," Connett points out. "They are far more concerned about protecting this policy for some reason than protecting health."
In 2003, the National Research Council appointed one of the most balanced and objective panels of experts that has ever objectively investigated fluoride. They spent about three years studying it and determined that the current "safe" drinking water standard of 4 ppm (parts per million) set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for fluoride is too high and should be lowered. But in the four years since, the EPA has not completed a new health-risk assessment, and thus we still live with this outdated and unsafe standard, even though the NRC study was specifically requested by the EPA.
When evaluating the issue of water fluoridation, it is also important to understand that fluoride is a drug. You can't get fluoride without a prescription! Yet it's being added to your water supply on a mandatory basis at various levels that may not be safe for various individuals, especially children, the sick, and the elderly. Water fluoridation is thus a major assault on your freedom of choice -- to be drugged or not. Sodium fluoride, which is a far simpler toxin than the fluoride compounds used for most water fluoridation, has also been used for rat and cockroach poisons, so there is no question that it is highly toxic.
Have a Glass of Water, Then Call Poison Control?!
Connett says:
The sad irony here is that the FDA, which does not regulate fluoride in drinking water, does regulate toothpaste and on the back of a tube of fluoridated toothpaste ... it must state that "if your child swallows more than the recommended amount, contact a poison control center."
The amount that they're talking about, the recommended amount, which is a pea-sized amount, is equivalent to one glass of water.
The FDA is not putting a label on the tap saying don't drink more than one glass of water. If you do, contact a poison center. So you got this tweedledum and tweedledee ...
There is no question that fluoride -- not an excessive amount -- can cause serious harm. There have been examples of children who swallowed the gel that is used for topical treatment and they died as a consequence. So fluoride is extremely toxic.
According to Dr. Connett, you also increase your child's risk for dental fluorosis if he brushes his teeth with fluoridated toothpaste twice a day compared to just once. "We're not talking about killing people outright with drinking water," he says. "What we're concerned about is the chronic exposure ... It's poisonous."
Fluoride Breaks Down Your Bones and Damages Your Thyroid
Approximately 50 percent of the fluoride that you ingest each day ends up accumulating in your bones over a lifetime. So you're steadily increasing the fluoride levels in your bones over time. Dr. Connett recounts the evidence gleaned from India and China, where some areas have high natural fluoride levels. There, the initial symptoms of fluoride poisoning are arthritis-like symptoms such as joint pains. Despite these findings, no study has ever been conducted in the U.S. to investigate whether there's an association between people living in fluoridated areas and increasing arthritis rates.
Fluoride also lowers thyroid function. It was used in medicine during the 1930s through 1950s in Europe to treat patients with overactive thyroid glands. This is a very real and significant concern, especially today as millions of people suffer with low thyroid function. Women seem to be particularly sensitive to this. I've seen tens of thousands of patients, and low thyroid function is a very common problem.
If you exhibit symptoms of low thyroid function you'll want to get a TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) test. If it's above 1.5, then you probably need to address your thyroid, at which point it becomes mandatory to avoid fluoride from all sources. Common symptoms of decreased thyroid function include:
Your drinking water and fluoridated toothpaste are the two most obvious sources, but you may also be exposed to fluoride from certain drugs, if they are metabolized to free fluoride in the body. This may occur with some antidepressants and some antibiotics, especially the fluoroquinolones. Another source is pesticides, so it also becomes more important to eat organic.
Where Does the Fluoride Come From?
It's important to make a distinction between the natural fluorides found in the environment and the toxic chemicals used for fluoridating your water. Ninety percent of the chemicals used in fluoridation in the United States do not occur naturally.
"It's a substance called hexafluorosilicic acid or its sodium salt: silicon fluorides," Connett explains. "These silicon fluorides are captured pollutants from the phosphate fertilizer industry. When you're making phosphate fertilizers ... the process generates two very toxic gasses: hydrogen fluoride and silicon tetrafluoride."
For about a hundred years, these decimated the local area: they damaged the vegetation, crippled cattle and so on. Eventually, they were required to capture these toxic gasses, using a spray of water. That spray of water produces silicon fluorides. That scrubbing liquor cannot be dumped into the sea by international law. It can't be dumped locally because it's too concentrated. But if someone buys it, it's no longer a hazardous waste, it's a product.
So who buys it?
"The public water utilities buy this stuff and put it in our drinking water. It's absolutely absurd," says Connett.
Dr. William Hirzy from the EPA has pointed out that if it goes into the air, it's a pollutant. If it goes into the local water, it's pollution. But if the public water utilities buy it and pour it in our drinking water, it's no longer a pollutant. All of a sudden, like magic, it's a beneficial public health measure.
"So not only are we doing something quite unique, using the public water supply to deliver medicine ... we're using the public water supply to get rid of hazardous waste from the phosphate industry," Connett says. "It makes a lot of money for them [this way, because otherwise it would cost] a lot of money to get rid of it as hazardous waste."
Making matters worse, if that's even possible, is that in recent times the U.S. has started purchasing these industrial fluoride products from China, as phosphate-producing industry in Florida has been reduced. However, some communities in the U.S. have stopped using China-made fluoride because it was producing a white sludge that jammed up the delivery system.
"The Center for Disease Control engineer said, 'We don't know what this sludge is but we know it's safe,'" Connett says. "But if you don't know what it is, how can you say it's safe?"
The Real Cause of Tooth Decay
As far as tooth decay is concerned, this is not caused by lack of fluoride. Tooth decay is caused by acids in your mouth, typically created from sugar being metabolized by bacteria (Streptococcus mutans), and as you may already know, the number-one source of calories in the United States is high fructose corn syrup. The acid produced then attacks your enamel. Eventually the bacteria can get into the dentine, at which point tooth decay sets in. You typically don't find dental caries in more primitive societies that do not consume these vast amounts of sugar.
"We need education, not fluoridation," Connett agrees. "That education would have a double dividend. By avoiding high fructose sugar, we'll not only score a huge benefit with dental decay but also with obesity and health."
A Special Note About Using Tap Water When Making Infant Formula
Most of the people who are educated about fluoride will avoid drinking municipal tap water that is fluoridated, and will use a reverse osmosis system in your home to rid your water of fluoride. However, there are many who simply don't have the resources or the know-how to protect themselves and their young children.
In November 2006, the American Dental Association (ADA) sent out an email to alert its members of their recommendation to parents to not use fluoridated tap water to make infant formula. A few days later, the CDC followed suit. But neither of them openly informed the public! So there are millions of parents out there using tap water to make up formula, oblivious of the fact that the agencies that promote fluoridation in this country have issued a specific warning against using fluoridated water for this purpose.
Not only that, but by fluoridating the municipal water supply, you doom many low-income families to fail to protect their young children from this dangerous drug, even if they have this information.
Help End Water Fluoridation in Canada and the United States
The Fluoride Action Network is an absolutely phenomenal resource for further education, and they're doing much to pressure the U.S. government for change. Their statement calling for an end to fluoridation worldwide now been signed by over 2,800 professionals. We encourage all medical and science professionals to sign this statement.
In addition, I highly recommend getting a copy of Dr. Connett's new book, "The Case Against Fluoride." It is scheduled for release in late September, but is available for pre-order.
Last but not least, stay tuned, as we will be working together to devise a complete game plan to tackle this issue head-on. Once we reach the tipping point, which may be as little as 5 percent of the population, we will be able to reverse the policies of water fluoridation. Our strategy will begin with addressing Canada, because 60 percent of Canada is already un-fluoridated. If we can get the rest of Canada to stop fluoridating their water, we believe the U.S. will be forced to follow.
If you live in Ontario, Canada, please join the ongoing effort by contacting Diane Sprules at diane.sprules@cogeco.ca. The point of contact for Toronto is Aliss Terpstra, whom you may email at aliss@nutrimom.ca.
We're also going to address two U.S. communities: Austin, Texas and San Diego, California. If you live in Austin, you can join the effort by contacting Rae Nadler-Olenick at either info@fluoridefreeaustin.com or fluoride.info@yahoo.com, or by regular mail or telephone:
POB 7486
Austin, Texas 78713
Phone: (512) 371-3786
If you're in San Diego, California, contact Patty Ducey-Brooks, publisher of the Presidio Sentinel at pbrooks936@aol.com.
You can always visit www.FluorideAlert.org for the most recent updates and progress.
In addition, we're willing to support any credible activist for this cause who is scientifically based and grounded, regardless of where you live in the U.S. We can provide resources to help support you in your effort to eliminate fluoride from your local community -- and it really needs to be a community battle. We're not going to be able to pass a federal law against fluoridation. There is not going to be a Presidential mandate or even a statewide elimination. This change will occur one community at a time.
"It's politics that is interfering with science in this issue," Connett says. "It's a matter of political will, and you cannot change political will if you don't get the people. We must involve the people."
So please, get informed and stay involved.
Dr. Joseph Mercola is the founder and director of Mercola.com. Become a fan of Dr. Mercola on Facebook, follow him on Twitter, and check out Dr. Mercola's report on sun exposure!
References:
1 Miller, Donald W., "Fluoride Follies," LewRockwell.com, 15 July 2005 (Accessed 27 October 2007).
WATCH:
Part 2 of 5
Part 3 of 5
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Part 5 of 5
Click here to download a transcript of this interview.
Follow Dr. Joseph Mercola on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mercola
Bill Chameides: The Chemical Marketplace Series -- Drinking It In: Is Fluoride Good for You?
Thomas P. Connelly, D.D.S.: Mouth Health: Fluoridated Water, Good or Bad?
However, I sincerely hope that any of you who reside in the Northeast have a similar and/or greater concern about the methane and other toxic chemicals used in fracking which will soon be entering the water supplies of New York, Philadelphia, as well as New York State, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware.
It's been far less studied because many of the chemicals are prorietary, but if you like clean water, it's something to learn more about. http://healthjournalistblog.com/hey-president-obama-keep-nycs-water-clean/
Alison
(yes - toxic waste, as testified before Congress: http://www.fluoridealert.org/testimony.htm )
Sure, there is a percentage of "fluoride" in it - (sodium fluoride or fluorosilicic acid) that is 85 times more toxic than naturally occurring calcium fluoride found in some well water. Both of them contain fluoride, but they are totally different compounds. What loving parent would want deprive our children of this or cig smoke for that matter?
-v
"WARNING: Keep out of reach of children under 6 years of age. If you accidentally swallow more than used for brushing, seek professional help or contact a poison control center immediately."
-v
Would you please take the time to send this information to one Rachel Maddow at MSNBC?
I would but she would undoubtedly delete it, cursing about teabaggers.
Maybe a D-R in front of your name could get her attention.
If I’m not mistaken, she has gone to great lengths to be as condescending as possible to anyone who questions the fluoridation of our water supply.
At least once she has lumped people concerned about this issue in with birthers and teabaggers.
There really isn’t any excuse for this as research on this issue has been around for a long time, obviously.
Still, she’s going to tell me that I’m one of those birthers because of something I knew for a fact was real. Just like how I know Obama is a citizen. (and really don’t care)
One of the main reasons this isn’t a national scandal is that many of the people we trust to investigate national scandals would rather accuse others of being conspiracy nuts than do their jobs and try to get to the truth.
I wrote her an email the last time she lumped me in with the birthers over another “conspiratorial” subject and told her that I gave her credit for not being some kind of shill for some “mythical sinister liberal establishment. Even though she didn’t give “crazies” like me any credit at all.
I still don’t think she’s all that, but she is obviously not as impartial as she tries to come off.
But then again, Amy Goodman has never gotten an exclusive meeting with Obama in the White House. Or a soft-soap interview with Biden that went on forever and ever.
Meanwhile, we’re all being poisoned by our drinking water. That’s messed up.
Is there a massive conspiracy to keep good research out of respected scientific journals, major newspapers, etc?
Why? How? Why haven't they taken out Mercola?
Also, what's the motive? Money..? Like tobacco lobby money? DDT lobby money? CFC lobby money? No seatbelts, they'll cost to much lobby money? Why would thousands of scientists, journalists, and public agencies keep quite?
Back to my point though. This is weak weak weak stuff and it makes us all look bad.
Want to get fluoride out of your drinking water? Make it about free choice and keeping the city budget in check. Keep the kooky science out of it. You might be right, but weak science is, well, weak. It makes us look bad.
When this information was ignored, it was brought before a court of law where fluoridation proponents were put under oath and subjected to cross examination. Pennsylvania's Judge Flaherty ruled fluoridation is extremely deleterious to health.
When this information also was ignored, a congressional hearing was conducted and, as a result, rodent studies were conducted where the findings were equivocal meaning fluoridation could cause cancer, maybe.
EPA scientist William Marcus blew the whistle on this study showing that the cancers were downgraded and that the study actually showed a strong link between fluoride and a rare liver cancer. He was fired; but rehired under the whistleblower's act because he told the truth.
Many studies since then have linked fluoride to cancer. It's politics not science that keeps fluoridation alive.
How about this age old method of research.
Lets "follow the money." If you had a toxic waste that somehow gets confused with a similar sounding chemical, what would you do? Sure, your "product" would need to be disposed of at the highest rated HASMAT facility ($$$$$). But by a fluke of salesmanship they get cities ($) to buy it (as testified before Congress: http://www.fluoridealert.org/testimony.htm ) Sounds like a deal for somebody, but not us. The industrial waste (sodium fluoride) is 85 times more toxic than natural occurring calcium fluoride. Both of them contain fluoride, but they are totally different compounds.
ask yourself...
Why do Over 3,000 Professionals Call for an End to Fluoridation of Drinking Water?
http://www.fluoridealert.org/professionals.statement.html
AND
Why do our own EPA Headquarters Professionals' Union Opposes Fluoridation?
http://www.fluoridealert.org/hp-epa.htm
-v
Thank God for Texas!
Sorry, your list of signers is a bit too wane for me... Oh... Wait!!!! Pete Seger sighed it too!
It MUST be true!
John Cheney 88
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=109635729052425