or about 100 years, the phosphate fertilizer industry, takes phosphate rock, heats it up with sulfuric acid to make soluble phosphate for fertilizers. and that drives off two gases hydrogen fluoride and silicon tetrafluoride, these two gases decimated the vegitation in the areas of these plants and crippled near by cattle, they came down with skeletal fluorosis and damaged the citrus groves in florida.
so to remove these gases they put in a wet scrubber (a spray of water) and that spray of water converts these toxic gases into a solution called hexafluorosilicic acid
fluoride is extremely toxic- it is very active biologically, interferring with many basic biochemical processes: enzymes, G proteins and hydrogen-bonds. there are a wide range of health effects attributed to fluoride. the first opponets of fluoridation going back to the 1950's were biochemists including scientists james sumner who won a nobel prize in enzyme chemistry.
incidentally, there is no doubt that fluoride damages health because millions of people in india, china, and parts of africa had their health ruined and were crippled by fluoride.
the argument as far as fluoridation is concerned is is there an adequate margin of safety between the doses that cause this known harm and the EPA safe drinking level of fluoride at 4 parts per million. incidentally, documented in this report by the national research council, published in 2006, 'FLUORIDE in drinking water', looked at the literature for three years and in this 507 page report with 1100 references indicated that it is not safe and not protective of health.
in mother's breast milk, fluoride is extremely low at .004 parts per million, that means a bottle fed baby in a fluoridated community at 1 part per million is getting a 250x dose than a breast fed baby.
it's a hazardous waste, not only hexafluorosilicic acid, but it's a lot of crap, lead arsenic, mercury, and radioactive isotopes.. the fertilizer companies cant dump it into the sea by international law and they cant dump it locally because it's too concentrated, but if someone buys it from them, they take away the label hazardous waste and it becomes a product.
now on to health concerns,
dental fluorosis: fluoride causes a discoloration and muddling of the tooth enamel. when the practice began in 1945 the promotors of fluoridation thought they could limit dental fluorosis to 10% of the children in a very mild form. the very mild form: white opaque patches of the teeth. and they thought this was an acceptable trade off for what they thought was lowering tooth decay.
in november 2010, the cdc told us that of children age 12-15 in the US, 41% now have dental fluorisis. not only the mild form which impacts 50% of the tooth surface, but also moderate which impacts 100%, and severe which is the whole surface including indentations and chipping of the teeth. 3.6% of children 12-15 have either moderate or severe dental fluorosis.
what other areas does fluoride affect? let's start with the bone, because the teeth are the window to the bone. if you can see the damage to the growing tooth cells what did the fluoride do to the growing bone?
the first study that was published on this that was published in 1955 indicated that the children in the fluoridated community which was newburgh ny had twice as much cortical bone defects as the children in the non-fluoridated community. cortical bone is the outside layer of the bone, it's supposed to protect against fractures. so the concern then is whether we're increasing bone fractures in children.
in 2001 researchers in mexico found a linear correlation, as the severity of dental fluorosis went up, so did bone fractures.
the next concern about bone is the first symptoms of bone poisoning in an adult is just like arthritis, stiff joints, pains in the joints, and pains in the bone... in the US we have 1 in 3 adults with some form of arthritis, if you ask a doctor what's causing it they will say we dont really know, but they think it has something to do with aging. as the fluoride continues to build up in the bone (up to 50% of all the fluoride that we take in each day accumulates in the bone; fluoride is bioaccumulative) the bones get more brittle. another major concern is increased hip fractures in older adults.
the studies done in china as documented in the national research council report, indicates that levels as low as 3 miligrams per day, that's three liters of fluoridated water a day, may increase hip fractures in the elderly.
however, the major concern is the brain. there have now been over 100 animal studies that show fluoride damages the brain. there also have been 23 IQ studies, mostly from china, but one from indian, one from iran and one from mexico which show an association between moderate exposure to fluoride and lowered IQ in children.
the study showed that IQ would begin to be lowered at 1.9 parts per million. once you put fluoride in the water, you can not control the dose. Today fluoride in our drinking water is regulated to 1 part per million.
another concern is the thyroid gland. between the 1930's and the 1950's doctors in argentina, france, and germany were giving patients with hyperthyroidism (over active thyroid gland) sodium fluoride tablets to lower thyroid function. the doses they were using were between 2.5 and 4.5 miligrams per day, which is exceeded by many people drinking fluoridated water. for example, the institute of medicine advises people to drink 3 liters of water a day, and so they would be in range for lower thyroid functions. once again, as in many of these other issues, the fluoridated countries including the united states are not doing the studies. they are not investigating to see if there is a relationship between fluoridation and lowered IQs, arthritis, hypothyroidism and if you dont look, you dont find.
another issue that came out in 1997 a researcher Jane Jones in england found that fluoride acccumulated in the human pineal gland. the gland is not protected by the blood brain barrier, and is also a calcifying tissue like the teeth and the bone. her study found that the average level of fluoride in the calcium hydroxyapatite crystals was 9,000 parts per million up to 21,000 parts per million. that little gland has a higher concentraion of fluoride than anywhere else in the body including the bone. in the animal studies they found that fluoride lowered the production of melatonin produced by the pineal gland, and shortened the time to puberty.
the department of health and human services has a policy to deny deny deny and critique the methodologies and not reproduce the study. they are using the absense of study as the absence of harm. it's almost as if the teeth have become the most important organs in the body, instead of the thyroid gland, or pineal gland.
so now, do the benefits outweight the risks?
lets look at the benefits. you can not find a difference in tooth decay today between fluoridated locations and non fluoridated communities. the largest survey ever conducted in the US in 1986-87 by pro-fluoridation researchers working for the national institute of dental research looked at 39,000 children in 84 communities and the biggest difference they could find between children who lived all their lives in a fluoridated community and children that lived al their lives in a non-fluoridated community was a saving of .6 of one tooth surface, not one tooth, but one tooth surface. there are 4 or 5 surfaces to a tooth. altogether there are 128 tooth surfaces. so we are saying this huge experiment with the health of the american people is being justified on the basis of saving .6 of one tooth surface. and that is the largest study conducted in the united states on benefits of fluoridation.
it is one of the greatest betrayals of the public trust.
fluoridation is a violation of your informed consent of medicine the AMA website requires. "The risks and benefits of a proposed treatment or procedure" before medicating. governments are doing to whole communities what an individual doctor can do to not one single patient: force them to take medicine. once you put a medicine in the water supply you cant control the dose.
go into your pharmacy and ask is there any drug that you dont have to control the dose? is there any drug that you can give to anyone in the population regardless of their health, nutritional status, or age? is there any drug you can give that has no individual supervision? is there any drug that doesn't have the food and drug administration not collecting side effect data? the answer to all of those questions is NO.
the CDC in 1999 conceded that the major benefits of fluoride, if they exist, are topical. it works on the outside of the tooth. not from inside the body. so the fluoride in the water is useless. further, the FDA has never regulated fluoride for ingestion.. but they do regulate toothpaste. on the back of the toothpaste the FDA warning reads: if more than the recommended amount (pea-sized) is accidentally swallowed then get medical help or contact poison control. a pea sized amount of fluoridated toothpaste contains about 1/4 of a miligram of fluoride. we fluoridate at 1 part per million, that's 1 miligram per liter. a 1/4 of a miligram would be in a quarter liter of water or 250ml or ONE large glass of water.
so by right there should be put a notice over the tap that says don't swallow this water, if you drink more than one glass of this water, contact poison control immediately.
