What is the Truth About Fluoride?

 

The research in this section helps to demonstrate why EPA’s union of scientists concluded that fluoridation is an unreasonable risk, and why a growing number of health professionals do as well.

 

The following are reasons why we believe current fluoride policies in the U.S. are unsafe:

 

• Current safety standards only protect against the most obvious forms of harm: Current safety standards for fluoride are based on the premise that severe dental fluorosis and crippling skeletal fluorosis are the first adverse effects that fluoride can have on the body. These effects represent the crudest, most obvious harm caused by fluoride. In the words of American University chemistry professor, Dr. William Hirzy, it would be a “biological miracle” if fluoride did not cause other harm prior to producing these end-stage forms of toxicity. Research already shows, in fact, that fluoride can cause arthritic symptoms and bone fracture well before the onset of crippling fluorosis, and can affect many other tissues besides bone and teeth, including the brain and thyroid gland.

 

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• . The IOM’s safety standard instills osteoarthritis and overt joint pain can cause clinical signs of skeletal fluorosis within just 10 to 20 years of exposure. People with clinical signs of fluorosis can suffer significant symptoms,  including chronic  concedes  — can safely ingest 10 milligrams of fluoride each day for their entire life without developing symptomatic bone damage. Ten milligrams, however, is the same dose that the IOM health conditionThe current “safe” daily dose for fluoride fails to withstand scrutiny: The Institute of Medicine (IOM) states that anyone over 8 years of age — irrespective of their little confidence in the medical understanding that currently underlies fluoride policies in the U.S.

 

• Some people are particularly susceptible to fluoride toxicity: It is well known that individual susceptibility to fluoride varies greatly across the population, and yet, the National Research Council has recently found that breathtakingly large gaps still exist in the safety literature on the effects these populations may be experiencing as a result of current fluoride exposures. The bewildering degree of uncertainties identified by the NRC stands in stark contrast to the IOM’s conclusion that 10 mg/day is so definitively safe that no “uncertainty factor” needs to be applied to protect vulnerable members of the population.

 

• The margin between the toxic and therapeutic dose is very narrow: The NRC concluded that the allegedly “safe” upper limit of fluoride in water (4 mg/l) is toxic to human health. While the NRC did not determine the safe level, their conclusion means that the safe level is less than 4 times the level added to water (0.7-1.2 mg/l) in community fluoridation programs. This is far too slim a margin to protect vulnerable members of the population, including those who consume high amounts of water.

 

 

“Estimation of the amount of fluoride ingested from all environmental and dietary sources is important so that rational and scientifically sound decisions can be made when guidelines for the use of fluorides are reviewed periodically and modified.” (Journal of Dental Research 1992)

 

When fluoride was first added to water in the 1940s as a means of preventing tooth decay, not a single dental product contained fluoride: no fluoride toothpastes, no fluoride mouthrinses, no fluoride varnishes, and no fluoride gels. In the past 60 years, as one fluoride product after another entered the market, exposure to fluoride increased considerably, particularly among children.

 

Exposure from other sources has increased as well. Other sources include processed foods made with fluoridated water, fluoride-containing pesticides, bottled teas, fluorinated pharmaceuticals, teflon pans, and mechanically deboned chicken. Taken together,  the glut of fluoride sources in the modern diet has created a toxic cocktail, one that has caused a dramatic increase in dental fluorosis (a tooth defect caused by excess fluoride intake) over the past 60 years. The problem with fluoride, therefore, is not that children are receiving too little, but that they are receiving too much. 

 

Even advocates of fluoridation have begun to recognize this problem. In January 2011, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) announced its recommendation that water fluoridation programs (which generally add 1 ppm fluoride to water) should lower the levels added to 0.7 ppm. This reduction, however, does little to solve the problem, as many children will continue to ingest more fluoride than is recommended, or safe.

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