"Dental Fluorosis, no matter how slight, is an irreversible pathological condition recognized by authorities around the world as the first readily detectable clinical symptom of previous chronic fluoride poisoning. To suggest we should ignore such a sign is as irrational as saying that the blue-black line which appears on the gums due to chronic lead poisoning is of no significance because it doesn't cause any pain or discomfort.”
-Dr. Geoffrey Smith
Canada still remains primarily on the wrong side of the fluoride debate in that a good chunk of our country still adds fluoride to our drinking water. However, this may not be the case for long as many cities are starting to remove it, including some major ones like Calgary, Windsor, Slave Lake, Quebec City, Thunder Bay and Waterloo. The percentage of people in Canada who mandatorily drink fluoridated water has apparently fallen from 43 to 32.5 percent since 2005.
The debate over the issue that occurred in Windsor has proven particularly effective in getting home the point that the science is simply not behind water fluoridation, at least not the way we currently do it. This remains the case despite endorsements from some major health authority groups like the Canadian and American Dental Associations, Health Canada, and the World Health Organizations. How could all of these major players be wrong? Because of a Bate-and-Switch tactic that has real and credible scientists believing one product is added to the water when we actually add another.
In Windsor, it was brought up that Ontario's Safe Drinking Water Act (2002) requires licenses for the operators of water treatment facilities. These licenses demand that any chemicals added to the water must meet the standards set out by the American Waterworks Association and the American National Standards Institute. These specify NSF60 (National Sanitation Foundation) guidelines must be followed. The trouble is that NSF60 states that: "The standard requires a full formulation disclosure of each chemical ingredient in a product to allow for toxicological evaluation (p. 2)." Dr. Allen Heimann is the Medical Officer of Health for Windsor and was a speaker and expert during the Windsor hearings who advocated for continued fluoridation. He claimed that the hydrofluorosilicic acid which was added to the water to provide the fluoride was safe and met the NSF60 requirements, meaning that it had been proven safe by toxicological evaluations.
However, this is contradicted by his own slideshow during the presentation which states: "Since 1962, toxicity and adverse health impacts have tested fluoride rather than fluorosilicates (hydrofluorosilic or fluorosilicic acid.)" It also states that "...no research has focused on the direct consumption of fluorosilicic acid outside of occupational settings." The total lack of toxicology evaluations that support the safety and efficacy of hydrofluorosilicic acid is confirmed by the Windsor Utilities Commission (WUC) who agree they don't exist. When confronted with the lack of supporting evidence, Dr. Heimann admits that it is appropriate to take precautions in accordance with the precautionary principle. This means discontinuing water fluoridation until its safety is proven. The councilors of the City of Windsor would take this testimony and vote to follow the precautionary principle by removing it.
What it comes down to is that we have allowed studies on naturally-occurring calcium fluoride and pharmaceutical grade-sodium fluoride, the type found in toothpaste, to be used as evidence for the safety of another type of fluoride. Despite all fluorides having a higher toxicity than lead, it was argued that small doses would benefit the teeth and be tolerable for the body. Hydrofluorosilicic acid, the type we add to our water, is different from these and is used instead because it is much cheaper. This is because it is industrial waste from the phosphate fertilizer industry that would otherwise need to be expensively disposed of in a manner that keeps it out of the environment due to its high toxicity. As it is untreated waste, it is by nature impure. As studies have shown, "HFSA, a liquid, contains significant amounts of arsenic (As)" and has "been shown to leach lead (Pb) from water delivery plumbing." This means using research regarding sodium and calcium fluoride to demonstrate the safety of hydrofluorosilicic acid is akin walking into a restaurant and asking for water and being provided with a cup of urine. When you ask why you were given urine instead of H20, they say the urine contains the H20 and don't worry about the rest of it.
The main benefit of fluoride is supposedly that it prevents cavities which seems to make sense considering that cavity rates have been falling in the last three decades. However, it's important to remember that they have been falling regardless of whether fluoride is added to the local drinking water or to your salt. This seems to imply there are other things at work. Better nutrition, fluoridated toothpaste, and an increased emphasis on dental hygiene are likely the real culprits of this decrease in cavities because it certainly isn't only occurring where people are drinking fluoride.
Excessive fluoride consumption results in problems. And let's remember, when we're talking water fluoridation, we are talking fluoride consumption because unlike toothpaste, we don't spit it out after. Consumption causes dental fluorosis, a browning and discoloring of the tooth enamel. Although the Canadian Dental Association writes off dental fluorosis as simply a cosmetic problem, “A linear correlation between the Dean index of dental fluorosis and the frequency of bone fractures was observed among both children and adults” according to several peer-reviewed studies. Which means having dental fluorosis makes it more likely your bones will break. The Centers for Disease Control has stated that 32% of Americans have dental fluorosis. Fluoride is known to leach into the teeth and bones. That it also makes them brittle when we literally see it disfiguring teeth is not surprising.
In 2006, the American Dental Association actually released a warning that fluoridated water should not be used in infant formula for kids under one due to its tendency to cause fluorosis. If you live in a fluoridated area, are you supposed to go to the store and buy non-fluoridated water to give to your child because your tap water isn't safe? This seems quite unfair and this advice will likely be ignored by many, resulting in kids unfairly winding up with discolored teeth and brittle bones.
In addition, being a neurotoxin, studies conducted by Harvard School of Public Health and the China Medical University in Shenyang have shown that fluoride damages developing brains in children and reduces IQ. A study in Taiwan also showed a much higher incidence of bladder cancer in women in areas where natural fluoride levels were high.
Even beyond the damage studies' have shown it to cause the body, there are ethical reasons for not forcing people to ingest it in their water. Mass medicating society in the hopes that it will benefit a few who do not brush their teeth is not a logical plan. Considering that people drink different amounts of water, it will also not affect everyone the same. Some people drink way more water. Athletes, diabetics, people who work in the sun, etc. This means they are getting much higher dosages than others. Medicine is about the right dose for the right person and mass fluoridation moves directly away from that principle. In addition, think how little of that hydrofluorosilic acid actually goes onto your teeth or into your body? Most of it is sprayed on your car or lawn or washed down the drain in the shower. Considering that HFSA is a toxic contaminant that needs to be disposed of carefully by guys in hazmat suits when in industrial settings, does it make sense to simply flush it into our water bodies so that a tiny fraction can enter our bodies?
Honestly, there are not a lot of countries that still add fluoride to their water. Some add it to salt so that people have the choice of consuming it without forcing it on everybody. Germany, France, Austria, Norway, Sweden, Italy, Scotland, and several others all choose to do that instead. Which is fine. If you believe in it having health benefits, then by all means please ingest it. Less than 1% of Japan fluoridates and China chose to stop in 2002. These are major countries with smart people in them. Why do we in Canada assume we somehow know better?
Israel is the latest to ban the toxic additive from being added to their water. The Israeli paper Haaretz has stated that Israeli Health Minister, Yael German, has decided that Israel will stop adding fluoride within a year. What's more is that law firm Dan Ashkenazi and Associates is suing Israeli water provider Mekorot for $4 billion NIS ($1.16 billion Canadian). This lawsuit is based on accusations that Mekorot provided "Israeli citizens with false information regarding their drinking water content and (for) causing environmental damage for the past 10 years." What was Mekorot hiding from the Israeli people? That it was doing exactly what we do here in Canada! Adding chemical waste in the form of hydrofluorosilicic acid to provide the fluoride ion while ignoring the fact that there is other junk in it.
So in conclusion, despite the endorsements of some major North American health officials, adding fluoride to our water is not safe and certainly not in the form we do it. It discolors our teeth, weakens our bones, and damages our brains. Most of the advanced world doesn't do it. In fact, only 5.7% of the people in the world do. If it was such a large cost saver, doesn't it seem likely more countries would do it and that less would be ending their fluoridation programs later? And even if we want to engage in it, doesn't it make sense to use a fluoride source that doesn't contain so much lead and arsenic?
Some of our official medical organizations are simply wrong on this issue. Wrong because they've been mislead into believing that pure forms of fluoride are the same as industrial waste forms. There is no evidence to show that the waste form is safe or effective. Let's quit paying people to pollute our bodies and our environment until they can prove beyond a doubt that it's safe and that there is a good reason for doing so.
I suspect I'll be waiting a while.
AS
-Dr. Geoffrey Smith
Canada still remains primarily on the wrong side of the fluoride debate in that a good chunk of our country still adds fluoride to our drinking water. However, this may not be the case for long as many cities are starting to remove it, including some major ones like Calgary, Windsor, Slave Lake, Quebec City, Thunder Bay and Waterloo. The percentage of people in Canada who mandatorily drink fluoridated water has apparently fallen from 43 to 32.5 percent since 2005.
The debate over the issue that occurred in Windsor has proven particularly effective in getting home the point that the science is simply not behind water fluoridation, at least not the way we currently do it. This remains the case despite endorsements from some major health authority groups like the Canadian and American Dental Associations, Health Canada, and the World Health Organizations. How could all of these major players be wrong? Because of a Bate-and-Switch tactic that has real and credible scientists believing one product is added to the water when we actually add another.
In Windsor, it was brought up that Ontario's Safe Drinking Water Act (2002) requires licenses for the operators of water treatment facilities. These licenses demand that any chemicals added to the water must meet the standards set out by the American Waterworks Association and the American National Standards Institute. These specify NSF60 (National Sanitation Foundation) guidelines must be followed. The trouble is that NSF60 states that: "The standard requires a full formulation disclosure of each chemical ingredient in a product to allow for toxicological evaluation (p. 2)." Dr. Allen Heimann is the Medical Officer of Health for Windsor and was a speaker and expert during the Windsor hearings who advocated for continued fluoridation. He claimed that the hydrofluorosilicic acid which was added to the water to provide the fluoride was safe and met the NSF60 requirements, meaning that it had been proven safe by toxicological evaluations.
However, this is contradicted by his own slideshow during the presentation which states: "Since 1962, toxicity and adverse health impacts have tested fluoride rather than fluorosilicates (hydrofluorosilic or fluorosilicic acid.)" It also states that "...no research has focused on the direct consumption of fluorosilicic acid outside of occupational settings." The total lack of toxicology evaluations that support the safety and efficacy of hydrofluorosilicic acid is confirmed by the Windsor Utilities Commission (WUC) who agree they don't exist. When confronted with the lack of supporting evidence, Dr. Heimann admits that it is appropriate to take precautions in accordance with the precautionary principle. This means discontinuing water fluoridation until its safety is proven. The councilors of the City of Windsor would take this testimony and vote to follow the precautionary principle by removing it.
What it comes down to is that we have allowed studies on naturally-occurring calcium fluoride and pharmaceutical grade-sodium fluoride, the type found in toothpaste, to be used as evidence for the safety of another type of fluoride. Despite all fluorides having a higher toxicity than lead, it was argued that small doses would benefit the teeth and be tolerable for the body. Hydrofluorosilicic acid, the type we add to our water, is different from these and is used instead because it is much cheaper. This is because it is industrial waste from the phosphate fertilizer industry that would otherwise need to be expensively disposed of in a manner that keeps it out of the environment due to its high toxicity. As it is untreated waste, it is by nature impure. As studies have shown, "HFSA, a liquid, contains significant amounts of arsenic (As)" and has "been shown to leach lead (Pb) from water delivery plumbing." This means using research regarding sodium and calcium fluoride to demonstrate the safety of hydrofluorosilicic acid is akin walking into a restaurant and asking for water and being provided with a cup of urine. When you ask why you were given urine instead of H20, they say the urine contains the H20 and don't worry about the rest of it.
The main benefit of fluoride is supposedly that it prevents cavities which seems to make sense considering that cavity rates have been falling in the last three decades. However, it's important to remember that they have been falling regardless of whether fluoride is added to the local drinking water or to your salt. This seems to imply there are other things at work. Better nutrition, fluoridated toothpaste, and an increased emphasis on dental hygiene are likely the real culprits of this decrease in cavities because it certainly isn't only occurring where people are drinking fluoride.
Excessive fluoride consumption results in problems. And let's remember, when we're talking water fluoridation, we are talking fluoride consumption because unlike toothpaste, we don't spit it out after. Consumption causes dental fluorosis, a browning and discoloring of the tooth enamel. Although the Canadian Dental Association writes off dental fluorosis as simply a cosmetic problem, “A linear correlation between the Dean index of dental fluorosis and the frequency of bone fractures was observed among both children and adults” according to several peer-reviewed studies. Which means having dental fluorosis makes it more likely your bones will break. The Centers for Disease Control has stated that 32% of Americans have dental fluorosis. Fluoride is known to leach into the teeth and bones. That it also makes them brittle when we literally see it disfiguring teeth is not surprising.
In 2006, the American Dental Association actually released a warning that fluoridated water should not be used in infant formula for kids under one due to its tendency to cause fluorosis. If you live in a fluoridated area, are you supposed to go to the store and buy non-fluoridated water to give to your child because your tap water isn't safe? This seems quite unfair and this advice will likely be ignored by many, resulting in kids unfairly winding up with discolored teeth and brittle bones.
In addition, being a neurotoxin, studies conducted by Harvard School of Public Health and the China Medical University in Shenyang have shown that fluoride damages developing brains in children and reduces IQ. A study in Taiwan also showed a much higher incidence of bladder cancer in women in areas where natural fluoride levels were high.
Even beyond the damage studies' have shown it to cause the body, there are ethical reasons for not forcing people to ingest it in their water. Mass medicating society in the hopes that it will benefit a few who do not brush their teeth is not a logical plan. Considering that people drink different amounts of water, it will also not affect everyone the same. Some people drink way more water. Athletes, diabetics, people who work in the sun, etc. This means they are getting much higher dosages than others. Medicine is about the right dose for the right person and mass fluoridation moves directly away from that principle. In addition, think how little of that hydrofluorosilic acid actually goes onto your teeth or into your body? Most of it is sprayed on your car or lawn or washed down the drain in the shower. Considering that HFSA is a toxic contaminant that needs to be disposed of carefully by guys in hazmat suits when in industrial settings, does it make sense to simply flush it into our water bodies so that a tiny fraction can enter our bodies?
Honestly, there are not a lot of countries that still add fluoride to their water. Some add it to salt so that people have the choice of consuming it without forcing it on everybody. Germany, France, Austria, Norway, Sweden, Italy, Scotland, and several others all choose to do that instead. Which is fine. If you believe in it having health benefits, then by all means please ingest it. Less than 1% of Japan fluoridates and China chose to stop in 2002. These are major countries with smart people in them. Why do we in Canada assume we somehow know better?
Israel is the latest to ban the toxic additive from being added to their water. The Israeli paper Haaretz has stated that Israeli Health Minister, Yael German, has decided that Israel will stop adding fluoride within a year. What's more is that law firm Dan Ashkenazi and Associates is suing Israeli water provider Mekorot for $4 billion NIS ($1.16 billion Canadian). This lawsuit is based on accusations that Mekorot provided "Israeli citizens with false information regarding their drinking water content and (for) causing environmental damage for the past 10 years." What was Mekorot hiding from the Israeli people? That it was doing exactly what we do here in Canada! Adding chemical waste in the form of hydrofluorosilicic acid to provide the fluoride ion while ignoring the fact that there is other junk in it.
So in conclusion, despite the endorsements of some major North American health officials, adding fluoride to our water is not safe and certainly not in the form we do it. It discolors our teeth, weakens our bones, and damages our brains. Most of the advanced world doesn't do it. In fact, only 5.7% of the people in the world do. If it was such a large cost saver, doesn't it seem likely more countries would do it and that less would be ending their fluoridation programs later? And even if we want to engage in it, doesn't it make sense to use a fluoride source that doesn't contain so much lead and arsenic?
Some of our official medical organizations are simply wrong on this issue. Wrong because they've been mislead into believing that pure forms of fluoride are the same as industrial waste forms. There is no evidence to show that the waste form is safe or effective. Let's quit paying people to pollute our bodies and our environment until they can prove beyond a doubt that it's safe and that there is a good reason for doing so.
I suspect I'll be waiting a while.
AS
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