NEW YORK, Aug. 14 /PRNewswire/ — Fluoridation is based more on unproven theories than scientific evidence, according to a revised dental textbook by leaders in the field.

Dentists have convinced the public, the media, and legislators that 1 part per million (ppm) fluoride (an essential nutrient — they claimed), added to water supplies is “optimal” to reduce children’s tooth decay, without unwanted fluorosis (white-spotted or dark-stained teeth) and that it is safe for everyone.

Ingested fluoride is incorporated into teeth before they erupt which reduces cavities, they said. Since residents of areas drinking water with natural calcium fluoride had fewer cavities, dentists, neglecting the calcium and other tooth building minerals, gave the credit to fluoride then lobbied to add fluoride to water supplies to level out tooth decay rates nationwide.

However, according to “Dentistry, Dental Practice, and the Community,” 1999, by prominent researchers and dental university professors, Burt, Eklund, et al.:

*  Fluoride is not an essential nutrient. It isn’t even a nutrient
*  Fluoride incorporated into developing teeth does NOT reduce tooth decay but does increase fluorosis. Alleged beneficial effects occur topically.
*  There is no evidence that “optimal” intake inhibits cavities. In fact, the authors suggest “optimum intake” of fluoride be dropped from common usage.
*  Near universal fluoridation in the U.S.A. hasn’t leveled out tooth decay rates, instead fluorosis has spread and increased.
*  Not every possible hypothesis regarding fluoride and human health was tested  before beginning fluoridation.

“Studies of even low-level fluoridated populations now show fluoride is linked to bone fractures, thyroid dysfunction, brain defects, kidney abnormalities, infertility, damaged teeth and unexpectedly collects in the pineal gland,” says Paul Beeber, President and Counsel, New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation.

“It’s reprehensible that our taxes continue to fund the failed fluoridation experiment with our children as the guinea pigs,” says Beeber.

More from the dental textbook:

*  “No clear reasons for the caries (cavities) decline (in the U.S.) have been identified”
*  At between 3 and 4 times “optimal,” fluoride causes tooth decay
*  A 1943 estimation that .05 mg ingested fluoride per kilogram of body weight could reduce cavities was misinterpreted, over time, as the “optimal”  fluoride dose, a level never scientifically verified.
*  “Dental fluorosis cannot be classed as a public health problem in the United States … It would be a mistake, however, to assume that it could not become so.”

“Fluorosis is already a public-health problem that can be solved by stopping the addition of fluoride chemicals into public water supplies,” says Beeber.

Despite Burt’s warnings, dentists continue to play games with our lives. Like Internet abusers who lure innocent web-surfers with a switch of a “dot-com,” the American Dental Association (ADA) purchased a website (according to http://www.networksolutions.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois ) resembling opponent’s Fluoride Action Network (FAN) which deliberately mis-directs FAN’s visitors to the ADA’s own pro-fluoridation website.

This ADA strategy, on the eve of the Centers for Disease Control’s release of new fluoride recommendations, makes us believe we have valid information the ADA wants to block from the public for its own damage control.

Burt et al write, “Fluoridation proponents have also made honest mistakes in promoting it. What can appear to some, in retrospect, as arrogance and complacency in past years can still present problems in promoting fluoridation today.”

“We hope the ADA and other fluoridation promoters will replace their arrogance and complacency with humility and prudence,” says Beeber.

Print PDF