Total tooth loss increased while Americans steadily receive more fluoridated water and food, according to recent government statistics.

Fluoride, hailed as a cavity preventive is supposed to enhance tooth retention; but fails expectations, damages teeth and possibly bones.

In 1999, 24.4% of Americans over 65 were edentulous(1) ranging from a low of about 14% in Hawaii (9% fluoridated) to a high of 48% in West Virginia (87% fluoridated), according to the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC). However, the April 2003 Journal of the American Dental Association reports toothlessness averages 30.3% with poor seniors suffering the highest rates at 45.1%.(2)

Yet 65.8% of Americans receive fluoridated tap water, up 3.7% since 1992 (2a) and virtually all Americans consume a fluoridated diet.(2b)

This seems to be a trend

“The states that were awarded A’s (in the Nation’s Oral health Report Card(5)) for having the highest percentage of their population on fluoridated water had the lowest grades for the percentage of people who still had their teeth,” according to an analysis by Hardy Limeback PhD, DDS, Head, Preventive Dentistry, University of Toronto(6).

Limeback found that “people were more likely to have missing teeth if they lived in the states where more than 50% of the population was fluoridated. Ironically, the states with the lowest percentage of communities with fluoridated water had the highest grades for oral health – in terms of missing teeth (e.g. more people kept their teeth if they lived in communities without fluoridation).”

Despite a high fluoridation rate, school oral health curriculum and fluoride supplement programs, 47% of Kentucky children aged 2 – 5 years old still suffer tooth decay (7) at a rate much higher than the national average (8). So do New York City Children(9), Maryland children (10), and Connecticut children (11), all fluoridated.

Actually, dental crises appear in many fluoridated cities.

Embarrassed dentists, with no evidence, try to blame fluoride-free bottled water(3) for the cavity increase. But, instead of a fluoride deficit, dental journals report fluoride excess(4a-L). Water is only one of too many fluoride sources creating dental fluorosis, an unsightly, sometimes tooth destroying disease.

It appears that lack of dental care rather than lack of fluoride is the culprit.(11a)

Because of abysmal diets, an astounding 76% of American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) preschoolers have cavities(12). But the lowest rate among AI/AN is in one of the least fluoridated states, California, according to a 1999 Oral Health Study.(12a)

Those with the greatest dental needs, the poor and minorities, are least likely to get dental care, according to the US Surgeon General. Often decayed teeth must fester and abscess, sometimes becoming life-threatening, before a dentally neglected patient is in acceptable pain to qualify for hospital emergency room treatment.

The emblem of dentists zeal are teeth discolored or disfigured by fluoride over-ingestion. Dental fluorosis, white spotted, yellow, brown or black and sometimes pitted teeth, the only outward sign of fluoride toxicity, that some say predicts fluoride-induced bone damage, is increasing in prevalence and severity in the U.S.(13) along with an increase in cavities(14).

Incredibly, 3% of those cavity-prone 6 – 14 year old AI/AN population have moderate or severe fluorosis which the American Dental Association defines as marked wear on biting surfaces; brown stain, and/or pitting.

It seems the dentist’s major weapon, fluoride is shooting blanks and damaging teeth but what is it doing to our bones?

To prevent crippling skeletal fluorosis, over 4 mg per liter fluoride is disallowed in water supplies by the US Environmental Protection Agency. The bone breaking painful disease with arthritic-like early symptoms is common in India but not taught in U.S. medical schools. Coupled with poor nutrition skeletal fluorosis is reported, even in areas naturally fluoridated at 1 ppm — the level most Americans consume daily.

Ten years of drinking 1 ppm fluoride-fortified water increased Newburgh, New York, children’s cortical bone defects (Schlessinger et al, 1956). Limbs are primarily cortical bone. Wrist and/or forearm fractures are linked to fluoridation in three recent studies (16, 17, 18); while another warns that dental fluorosis may be a red flag for future bone fractures (19).

Forearm fractures are rising among both adolescent boys and girls who live in fluoridated Rochester, Minnesota, according to a Mayo Clinic study published in the September 17, 2003, issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association(20). Could it be the fluoride?

Over 91% of fluoridated communities use silicofluorides, recently linked to children’s higher blood lead levels. Lead causes cavities(21) and displaces bone and tooth building calcium in the body.(21a)

Unbelievably, with all this negative scientific evidence, misinformed dentists still push fluoridation.

Coalitions of public health professionals and doctors campaigned hard to convince Salt Lake City to fluoridate its populace, which started October 1, 2003, despite a Utah study showing more hip fractures in fluoridated Brigham City compared to non-fluoridated Logan and Cedar City.

Connersville, Indiana, dentists lobbied successfully for fluoridation (22) despite a study showing many Connersville children, specifically, already consumed too much fluoride.(23)

One wonders, if like medical doctors educated via drug company representatives, dentists get their fluoride information from the fluoride manufacturers, who profit from this madness. In return they support organized dentistry via advertising, symposiums, grants, with equipment, continuing education credits, awards, free samples and even the monument to fluoridation eyesore in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where the fluoridation fiasco began.

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