Banning PFAS, ban fluorine?

I read with great interest the article in the April 9 edition, “Some states consider banning cosmetics containing PFAS,” A very encouraging report on a new grasp of our situation with toxins. As the article notes, “researchers tested…contained fluorine — an indicator of PFAS.” There it is, identifying fluorine AKA fluoride as a toxin.

BBC producer, Christopher Bryson, spent ten years researching and writing, “The Fluoride Deception,” He delves into the history of fluoride going back to the “fluorine martyrs,” scientists who studied this element (F), but died young, fluoride is so very toxic. This is where I first heard “fluorine.” Fluoride, once used as a rodent poison and has a long history of poisoning countrysides and towns. If you studied Pennsylvania history, but do not remember studying America’s worst air disaster caused by fluoride in Donora PA don’t feel badly. Joe Minott, Director of Clean Air Council, had never heard of it either when I asked him.

On Oct. 27, 1948, there was an air inversion that trapped fluoride belching from the local steel mill, and killed 20 people sickening hundreds. The official report was that “smog” caused the disaster, and that’s the description you will find in all subsequent reports. A Philadelphia scientist, Phillip Stadler, journeyed on his own to Donora after his scientist father recalled an even worse disaster in Belgium (1930). Mr. Stadler obtained fluoride blood levels of the deceased that were at fatal levels. Plain old smog does not kill, fluoride does.

Although there have been decades and hundreds of studies or reports that prove fluoride is a toxin, and also a neurodevlopmental toxin which lowers IQ if exposed when the brain is developing,there is new hope for public safety if officials heed a 2019 report from the National Toxicology Program. In the new Epoch Times Series,“America, the Fluoridated,” they quote the NTP, “2019’s Systemic Review of Fluoride Exposure and Neurodevelopmental And Cognitive Health Effects” which concludes, “fluoride is presumed to be a cognitive neurodevlopmental hazard to humans.” They state that “this conclusion is based on a consistent pattern of findings in human studies across several different populations showing that higher fluoride exposure is associated with decreased IQ or other cognitive impairments in children.”

Certainly, trade associations like the ADA, AMA, and the CDC, will maintain that fluoride decreases tooth decay. They have decades of “safe and effective” policy to defend. But, would you brush your teeth with dilute amounts of arsenic if it decreased decay? Fluoride is slightly less toxic than arsenic. I am truly and incredibly sorry that we the people were desensitized to the word “fluoride.”

Why do our policymakers love fluoride? It’s complicated, and I believe ever evolving. Industrial pollution and worker liability in the beginning? Pollution disposal? Monetary gain by trade associations, scientists, universities and foundations to support this juggernaut? Please, ask questions and perform your own due diligence on fluoride and toxins in our environment.

BEVERLY DECER

Williamsport

*Original full-text article online at: https://www.sungazette.com/opinion/letters/2023/04/banning-pfas-ban-fluorine/