On May 19, the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors might vote to fluoridate our water supply and it will not be about tooth decay but truth decay.
Modern science shows that fluoridation is both ineffective and toxic with strong links to lowered child IQ, ADHD, hypothyroidism, skeletal fluorosis often misdiagnosed as osteoarthritis with increased hip fractures and more.
Our government concedes that fluoride’s effect is predominantly topical (surface application) not systemic (swallowed). Read for yourself at http:www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/ mmwrhtml/rr5014a1.htm. Read your toothpaste tube and the box to see the Drug Facts warnings about fluoride. Fluoride is not added to treat water as in chlorine. It is only added to treat the humans, which makes it a drug. Read for yourself the FDA mandated Drug Fact warning on the toothpaste, but the FDA goes further to call it an “unapproved drug” because fluoride has never been subjected to a proper double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study, neither for the effectiveness nor adverse health consequences.
Mammals have no requirements for fluoride, so it is not a nutrient and is completely different from fortifying foods with iron, vitamin D, or folic acid. Instead it is like adding anti-depressants or cholesterol-reducing statins to our water. Once the fluoride is added, your filter will not remove it and even a reverse osmosis system costing thousands of dollars removes only about 89%.
If you want real science about the dangers, read the government’s free PDF report, Fluoride in Drinking Water: A Scientific Review of EPS’s Standards at http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11571.html.
Fluoride is not harmless. It is a known neurotoxin that crosses the blood-brain barrier in infants and strong scientific evidence links it to reduced child IQ levels, hypothyroidism (now rampant in the US), fluoride accumulation in the pineal gland that leads to earlier onset of menarche (the first menstruation) in girls (which can indirectly increase breast cancer risk), skeletal fluorosis, osteosarcoma (bone cancer), and increased bone brittleness leading to hip fractures.
A study published this year in Environmental Health looked at the prevalence of fluoridation by state and found a strong correlation with prevalence of ADHD.
Fluoride is not a water treatment to make the water safer (like chlorine). It is not a nutrient because it is not required for any biological process in mammals. It is added to water to affect the human body with the intent of disease prevention, which matches the very definition of a drug, despite proponents’ claims that it is merely a mineral or nutrient. The HFSA from fluoride that would be added to the water does not occur in nature.
Adding this medicine to the water is no different from adding statins, antihypertensive (blood pressure reducers), or Prozac to our water-except that we would not be adding the pharmaceutical grade sodium fluoride used in toothpaste but instead adding hexafluorosilicic acid, an unrefined and heavy-metal-contaminated waste byproduct from smoke stack scrubbers at phosphate fertilizer plants, which would cost a bundle to dispose of if not sold to water supplies for an undisclosed amount estimated at several hundred million dollars per year.
All other drugs require the informed consent of the patient, but fluoride will be unavoidable, which is a violation of medical ethics.
Proponents point out that seawater has a slightly higher fluoride concentration, but this is a specious distraction, as we know it’s not healthy nor feasible to drink too much seawater.
The average reader does not have the time to untangle which side is quoting the “real science,” so consider some commonsense observations that ought to raise doubt and concern.
Recently, the “optimal level” (which many contend is zero) was backed off from 1 ppm to 0.7 ppm because the CDC admitted that 32% of US children have dental fluorosis. This is a mottling of the tooth enamel which fluoridators claim to be “merely cosmetic.” while opponents contend that the chemical processes and resultant hydroxyapatite of the bones are very similar to the teeth so mottling is likely a “window into the bones” an outward manifestation of risk for skeletal fluorosis-which is often diagnosed as arthritis.
The EPA sets the Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) at 4 ppm (parts per million). Opponents cite solid science that would set this level at 0.05 mg/day which is the amount in one third cup of 0.7 ppm but even if we trust their lenient 4 ppm MCL, it means that anyone drinking five times the average amount of water will be getting a dosage that is agreed to be toxic. So, we can see that this one-size-fits-all dosage makes no sense. It also violates basic pharmacological principles. The amount of fluoride found in mother’s milk is 0.004 ppm, and yet the proposal is to fluoridate at 0.7 ppm, 175 times that amount.
Rather than a controlled human trial, our entire nation has been the guinea pig, with 70% now drinking fluoridated water and studies show no correlation whatsoever between the prevalence of tooth decay compared to each state’s percentage that are drinking fluoridated water. Fluoride is likely to be added to our water supply unless a great many of us present strong objections to the County Board of Supervisors before May 19, if you want to protect our health, then e-mail your supervisor at http://sonomacounty.ca.gov/Board-of-Supervisors/Contact-Board-of -Supervisors/. Better still phone your supervisor today at 707-565-2241. It will help to contact your local city council members so your individual city can override the county to ban fluoride as Sonoma and Cotati have already done. Just say No to fluoridation.
Edited copy of the letter from Alan Friedman, Rohnert Park
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