Backs Down

In 1973, British Columbia was considering mandatory fluoridation. They gave the job of researching and reporting the topic to Richard Foulkes, MD. Foulkes then wrote a 2000 page report and recommended that legislation begin to make fluoride mandatory in Canada. Based on that work, Canada began to fluoridate.

Then something happened. Little by little, Foulkes found out that the statistics that his researchers had based their findings on were largely falsified. It took Foulkes years to run down the truth, but by 1992, he shocked the country by backing down from his original recommendation:

"I now hold a different view. ... the fluoridation of community water supplies can no longer be held to be either safe or effective in the reduction of dental caries ... .Therefore, the practice should be abandoned."- Foulkes, 1992

Foulkes is not some tree-hugger from Santa Cruz. He is one of Canada's top scientific researchers. Many areas of Canada listened and stopped fluoridating. Want to read a first-hand story about lies and greed and disregard for human health and crooked deals between government and industry? Read Dr. Foulkes stuff.

Another pro-fluoride Canadian scientist, Dr. Hardy Limeback, changed his tune when he learned that 30-65% of Canadian children now have visible signs of overexposure to fluoride: dental fluorosis. Limeback:

"Children under three should never use fluoridated toothpaste. Or drink fluoridated water."

- Toronto Star Michael Downey interview with Limeback

Such research also prompted the Canadian Dental Association in 1992 to keep fluoride supplements from children of three and under. But attacking fluoride supplement pills is just a smokescreen to protect fluoridation of drinking water.

Most research has found all the above ill effects at concentrations even less than the standard 1 PPM that is in most city water. It's not the supplements that are killing us; it's the fluoridated water.

Fluoridation In Other Countries

If fluoridation is as safe and effective as the American Dental Association says it is, why don't other countries do it?

The U.S. is nowhere near the top of any health list which compares other countries of the world, as we saw in Chapter One. So what are the healthy countries doing?

If fluoride is so great, why have the following countries either never fluoridated or else stopped when they found out how bad it was?:

• West Germany
  
• The Netherlands
  
• France
  
• Belgium
  
• Finland
  
• Sweden
  
• Norway
  
• Denmark
  
• Japan
  
• Italy
  
• Scotland

Only about 2% of the population of Europe is subjected to fluoridated water.

Locked In

Three reasons why we're so far down the road of toxic fluoridation, it's hard to come back:

1. To reverse the policy of fluoridation now would be for the ADA, the EPA, the FDA, and the USPHS, Congress, and all the municipal water polluters in the US to admit that they made a mistake. Not a good move for re-election.

2.To criticize fluoridation as a policy would challenge the billions of tons of fluoride being released into the air and water by the nuclear, aluminum, phosphate, steel, glass, cement, and petrochemical industries.

3. If fluoridation stopped, a multi-million dollar gravy train of research grants, propaganda contracts, and sweetheart arrangements between government and industry would vaporize overnight.

Freud And The Slime Factor

It may not be a good idea to blind ourselves to the presence of cold-blooded 24-karat Evil as it exists in the world today. But it's not like some madman in a James Bond movie with terminal acne, dressed in a metallic suit, speaking terrible English from his office in a hollowed-out volcano somewhere, threatening to destroy the world.

No, no. These guys are polite and well-groomed, and have impeccable credentials.

More like Al Pacino where he's the devil in that movie with Keanu Reeves - very likable, well-traveled, appreciates a fine wine, knows when to say that one perfect remark to make things work ... Or even Billy Crystal where he's the devil in that Woody Allen movie - very charming and confident. These are not people to be confronted and defeated. No, these individuals advance.

Their expertise is in how to get on, pageantry, presentation.

Beneath them, are the ones who do the work. Dr. Y chronicles a group of low-level bureaucrats and opinion makers whose unsupported, semi-literate propaganda gets constant media play.

Propaganda Can't Be Brilliant, And Doesn't Have To Be True Or Make Sense.

It just has to be simple and be repeated over and over every day. These same pretenders and "social scientists" are coincidentally the stable of "experts" who are continually given extensive media space to criticize anything alternative or holistic that threatens organized medicine. Doctors of the evening. Flaccid guns for hire. Their tactics are low-level and powerful, according to the Bernays formula:

• conduct no research
  
• avoid the real issues when possible
  
• never engage in any debate where actual research data will be used
  
• attack the opponent, not the issue

Don't try to instruct, or lead through a process of step-by-step education

• persuade; do not inform
  
• use emotional phrases to distract people from the real issues
  
• when confronted, change the subject
  
• cover up the real studies; never refer to them

Pretend there is some favorable research by using phrases like "Numerous studies have shown ... " or "Research has proven..." or "Scientific investigators have found ... ." but then never cite anything

Always harp on the "superior education and training" of the fluoridation people, pretending that the most educated doctors and professionals favor fluoridation, even though Dr Y thoroughly proves that most of the propaganda has been written by non-science people, generally with public relations or mass-psychology backgrounds

• Keep repeating unfounded falsehoods about the safety and effectiveness of proven poisons
• Remind people how many decades fluoridation has been going on
• Favor mandatory fluoridation legislation, removing all opportunity for free discussion when possible
• Try to keep all opposing evidence from being seen or considered by any policy-making agency
• Omit pertinent data from actual studies
• Above all, never stop repeating the same falsehoods, over and over.

Like him or not, we must respect Freud's grasp of the human mind and what motivates it. Freud is the father of psychoanalysis, and even though that profession has largely fallen by the wayside, diluted by a thousand social servants, his original principles have found a home: the media. Shaping mass opinion in the "proper" mold - the PC lemmings can be guided to practically any cliff the controllers can dream up.

Reality Check

Most people have no opportunity to have the facts of the issues presented to them, because of the virtual blackout of information in the media. That's why all this seems so odd.

With the help of the colossal disinformation machine in operation, according to the American Dental Association probably about 62% of the drinking water in the US is fluoridated. (www.ada.org) But some courts have shown the other side of the picture, and beginning to see through the standard shell-games of the pro-fluoridationists.

In a famous legal battle over fluoridation in the 1950s we find the judge letting us have it:

"By fluoridating the water the municipal authorities...arrogate to themselves the sole right to decide what medicine is good for the health of the water consumers, and thereby the municipal water system becomes a direct conduit for the transportation of medicine from the apothecary's pestle to the patient, without the latter's consent.

Thus will the people be deprived of a very important part of their constitutional liberty under our republican form of government and the police state will be substituted for the police power of the state."

Two decades later a Pennsylvania Supreme Court judge made a meticulous review of all available research, both pro and con, before entering his 1979 injunction against fluoridation. His Honor was less than impressed with the wit of the fluoridationists:

"The proponents of fluoridation do nothing more than try to impugn the objectivity of those who oppose fluoridation."- Judge John Flaherty
Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Judge Flaherty wrote a letter to the Mayor of Auckland, New Zealand stating:

" ... In my view the evidence is quite convincing that the addition of sodium fluoride to the public water supply at one part per million is extremely deleterious to the human body, and ... there is no convincing evidence to the contrary."- The Arthritis Trust, 1994

The Legal Novelty Of Fluoridation

Fluoridation is a totally new idea, from a Constitutional point of view. It's nothing like adding chlorine. Although chlorine has toxic side effects, it actually does something beneficial to the water - chlorine purifies the water. Fluoride does no such thing. Fluoride is a drug, a medication that supposedly has beneficial effects for a small percentage of the population.

"The purpose of administering fluoride is not to render the water supply pure and potable but to contaminate it with a dangerous toxic drug for the purpose of administering mass medication to the consumer without regard to age or physical condition."

In other words, without consent. And giving drugs without consent is in direct violation of international codes of war behavior, like Nuremberg and the Geneva Accords. Commenting on the famous KAUL case above, Judge Hamley had this to say:

"What future proposals may be made to treat noncontagious disease by adding ingredients to our water supply, or food or air, only time will tell. When that day arrives, those who treasure their personal liberty will look in vain for a constitutional safeguard. The answer will be : 'You gave the Constitution away in the Kaul case."

Conversation Stopper

Want to stop a fluoridation advocate in his tracks?

Ask him to cite exact legitimate studies that prove fluoridation prevents tooth decay.

Then find them. Besides the few bogus political documents by Dean and Cox, cited above, there aren't any. Fluoride research is a huge area. The fact that most studies have been almost completely suppressed for the past 50 years mars many illusions about the democratic process.

If people want fluoride in their drinking water, let them buy supplements. Fluoridation of municipal water has nothing to do with health. It's just politics.

It floors you to realize the immense amount of scientific research and legal opinion proving the toxicity of fluoride since the 1930s, that has been ignored and suppressed.

Why did all those people do all that work?

With every new city that places fluoridation on the ballot, all the old arguments are dragged out, as if it's from scratch every time, without the benefit of input from all the other hundreds of communities that have gone through this same battle. Divide and conquer - worked for the Romans.

Antifluoridationist information programs are often privately funded grassroots little organizations, but their influence is being felt across the nation. With the rise of the Internet, it is getting harder to keep people from learning the real effects about fluoride. For these reasons, clean water is very slowing making progress against the totalitarian forces of mass medications. But the struggle never ends.

Other Contaminants

Chlorine and fluoride are added on purpose to the water. We haven't even mentioned the millions of tons of industrial pollutants that sneak into the earth's water supply every year.

To give just one small example, Congress did a study in 1979 of the extent of industrial pollution between 1950 and 1970. They verified just a part of what was actually dumped into America's water supply: the top 14% of industrial polluters discharged 1.5 trillion pounds of industrial wastes into the water supply in that 20 year period.

What about the other 86%?

Think it's improved since 1970? Consider this:

The only federal agency for ensuring clean drinking water is the EPA. In 1997, after the cryptosporidium deaths in Milwaukee and Las Vegas, Clinton tried to upgrade the provisions of the 1986 Safe Drinking Water Act.

But the EPA only regulates some 60 chemicals-there are thousands of chemical pollutants in the water! And the states are individually claiming that complying with the restrictions on just those 60 are "too expensive" because they just don't have the money. Most water systems are operating on very old designs with inadequate capacity. (Kupua A'o, p16)

As a result, in 1991-1992 alone, the EPA reported over 250,000 violations of the Safe Drinking Water Act, affecting more than 100 million Americans. (Natural Resources Defense Council) For those 250,000 violations, guess on how many the EPA took enforcement action. Just guess. About 600.

Looks like we're on our own out here.

How Can We Get Pure, Clean Water?

The tap water in this country seems to have a few problems:

• organochlorines
  
• fluoride
  
• PCBs
  
• THMs
  
• heavy metals
  
• resistant biologicals

You'd think that since we created the problem, we could fix it. But even if Greenpeace or someone took over the government of the world tomorrow and stopped all further pollution tonnage, it would be years, decades before the water would be like it was before the Industrial Revolution.

These contaminants will be around for centuries.

By now everyone knows what the concept of half-life means. Different data sources, different time frames, but one thing is certain: the water cannot be cleaned up in our lifetime, no matter what is done. Writing a sentence like that is a shocker. Where is my ninja team?

So What Can We Do?

Don't drink the tap water for starters. But does that also mean don't wash vegetables, make ice cubes, or cook with tap water? Yes, it does, because heat doesn't destroy fluoride, heavy metals, or other contaminants. Remember the word bioaccumulative.

So the first step is

Bottled Water

That's right - drag it home from the market every week. Or the 5-gallon bottle from the water store. Is that safe enough? Maybe. Who knows? You have to trust two groups of people in order to be sure:

• the regulating agencies
  
• the sellers

Water stores sell reverse osmosis water - no minerals. Bottled water is only as good as the monitoring system in place. Step right up.

Filters

"Buy a filter or be a filter." That's one company's slogan.

Today there is enough grassroots consciousness about the dangers of tap water that cheap carbon filters are now available in any hardware store which attach easily to the kitchen faucet. It is likely that such filters get rid of most of the chlorine - for awhile.

But to really get the resistant biologicals, the fluoride, heavy metals, and other contaminants, the customer may consider one of the high-end drinking water filters. These cost between two and four hundred dollars and come in models for both over and under the sink.

Names like Alpine, MultiPure, and Spectrapure are among the dozens of brand names that have come along during the past 20 years. Multipure seems to be out front at this time. Everyone claims to be the best, of course, but we can find some important similarities in their advertising. When you begin to compare the better water filters, you notice common concerns:

Killing microbials is not a big deal since most of that's been done by chlorine. Most contaminants are removed by the better filters. The problem when choosing a filter seems to come down to four main concerns: fluoride, minerals, THMs, and nitrates.

Difficult to find one filter that does everything: many reverse osmosis filters take out fluoride, but also the healthy minerals. Many of the high-end carbon filters will not remove fluoride or nitrates, but leave the healthy minerals.

Fluoride is obviously a biggie. Find out if the filter you are about to buy removes fluoride, and what percentage. After what we've learned about fluoride, we should expect a filter to remove it, wouldn't you say? Problem is: the demand.

Due to fluoride advocate propaganda, most Americans don't even realize fluoride is bad, and therefore don't think about it when considering a water filter.

NSF is a third-party non-profit testing agency that has been rating water filters for the past 50 years. Always ask - is it NSF-certified? For what? Don't be fooled if they say 'NSF-tested.' Big difference.

Minerals is an area of some controversy. You've got the hard water / soft water debate. Hard water has more minerals in it, which obviously is better for the bones and teeth, and probably for the heart as well.

That makes sense, although as we saw in the Minerals chapter, elemental minerals are the least absorbed of all types. Elemental means from rocks, and that's the kind that would be in spring water, and therefore in filtered water, except for reverse osmosis. In my opinion, hard water is better than distilled.

Most naturopaths and holistic nutritionists don't like distilled water because they say it leaches minerals from the bones and teeth. In general, that seems logical, although Dr. Y says it doesn't make any difference unless the person is extremely malnourished.

The truth is, no formal studies comparing distilled with mineral water have been done, so it's all pretty theoretical. But thinking about the Hunzas and their 120-year lifespan that was attributed to the glacial mineral waters they drank, one can see the value of minerals in drinking water.

A high-end water filter should take this discussion into consideration and give reasons about the importance or unimportance of filtering out certain minerals.

Comes down to a choice: reverse osmosis or carbon block. With reverse osmosis you've can remove fluoride but also remove many minerals, and wasting about 4-9 gallons to get one gallon of pure water. (A'o, p72) With high-end carbon mesh filters, you can get rid of everything but fluoride, and you'll still have minerals.

These are questions for the filter sales force. Make 'em dance for you. Caveat emptor - only 5 states have any regulations about what water filter manufacturers can say. On the Internet - it's a total jungle!

The Rest Of The Iceberg

The materials cited really only scratch the surface of the research that has been done in these areas. The purpose of this article has been to acquaint you with some of the basic issues in regard to drinking water, issues that are systematically hidden from the media, for obvious reasons.

Prove them wrong, if you can; just don't pretend like these problems don't exist. When you read something that proclaims the purity of tap water or the importance of fluoride, maybe now you will notice how studies are claimed but never cited. Look behind what you read and try to see the persuasive tactics of Freud's nephew. Appreciate the mastery of an art.

The physiological importance of hydration has really been glossed over by doctors and nutritionists, not on purpose, but simply because it's not taught. The ideas of Dr. Batmanghelidj must be confronted - either he's right or else there's a major gap in our health information.

It's unfortunate that the sludge of politics has to be hauled into a discussion of water purity. But once you discover how and why our water got this way, the political influences are like an elephant in the living room - pretty hard to ignore.

Not exactly hot news; politics has been controlling science ever since they locked Galileo in that high-rise jail for discovering the earth went around the sun. Which is why you shouldn't expect much support if you try to discuss or substantiate what you've just learned in this chapter. Lemmings know what lemmings are told.

The rest of the iceberg is left to you. This chapter is just the briefest glimpse of the top part. With a little follow-up, perhaps you won't make the same mistake the captain of the Titanic made: thinking that there's nothing in the water that can hurt you.

Dr. Tim O'Shea

References

In you live in the New Hampshire area, you may be interested in a public forum on Fluoridation that will be taking place at Dartmouth College on February 14, 2002. For more information CLICK HERE.

COMMENT BY MYRON J. COPLAN, PE:

The subject 3-installment article (Issues 295-297 of the Mercola newsletter) would enlighten the public better if it made its case without editorial embellishment. This flaw can be rectified without detracting one iota from the fundamental message: fluoride is not as safe as the public has been led to believe. Moreover, the idea that ingested fluoride delivered in municipal water treated with fluoridating agents plays a role in preventing tooth decay is rooted in bad data compounded by poor science.

The benefit of fluoride, in very small amounts, is due to its ability to catalyze repair of tooth enamel that has started to suffer chemical attack by acidic products produced by bacteria that flourish in the mouth. That benefit is not the result of fluoride getting into the bloodstream. The only benefit from fluoride occurs when it comes in contact with the tooth surface. Thus, health-related government agencies and the numerous non-government health "experts" who favor ingestion of fluoride from municipal water supplies have been supporting a health policy without merit.

This fact raises the matter of motivation. Over the 50 + year history of fluoridation, critics have tried to explain how this public health policy came about and why it has been continued. Corporate greed allied with incompetent and/or corrupt government employees is a favorite hypothesis. There is more that needs to be said on that score, but it is hard to support the position that pecuniary considerations are now or ever have been the central motive.

The main purpose of this writing is to correct the sort of factual and scientifically erroneous statements in the captioned article that are often made by opponents of fluoridation to the detriment of their credibility and, therefore, to their purpose. If the foolish and dangerous practice of water fluoridation in the United States is ever going to be abandoned it will not, and indeed it should not, be the result of purveying mis-information. That tactic is better left to the die-hard proponents of fluoridation who disrespect fact and purvey propagandist dogma.

The author of the present discussion is a retired senior executive of a multi-national corporation with 45 years experience as a practicing scientist. During that time he consulted with and performed or supervised research under contract with dozens of US government agencies and hundreds of commercial corporations. He holds over 30 patents in areas pertaining to water and waster-water purification by membrane systems (reverse osmosis and ultrafiltration). In the course of consulting activities, he had first hand experience with silicofluoride, the agent used to fluoridate 91 % of all the fluoridated water in the United States.

He has also been a member of his community board of health and has had extensive experience with the politics of fluoridation by contacts with state, local and federal agencies that actively promote this policy. Above all, however, the reliability of the following comments is based on an ongoing 40-year interest in the subject backed by scientific research experience and extensive reading of relevant literature.

Responses to Statements in "Is Fluoride Really As Safe As You Are Told?"

Installment 1 of 3

Statement

" ... all federal health agencies have known [about adverse health effects of fluoride] for years, but have been controlled by the political interests of the nuclear arms, aluminum, and phosphate manufacturers to keep it a secret ... Why would they do that? So that, in the total absence of scientific proofs, a toxic industrial waste could be passed off on the public as a nutrient with necessary health benefits, to the tune of $10 billion per year. Or more.

Response

First, total sales of all water fluoridating chemicals amounts to under $150 million per year. So, inducing communities to buy fluosilicic acid and sodium fluosilicate, (the silicofluoride by-products of "phosphate manufacturers" that have been the main "toxic industrial waste ... passed off on the public") should not be described as creating unjustified financial gain " ... to the tune of $10 billion per year."

Second, if the $10 billion is not based on sales but figured as cost savings due to avoiding pollution control measures by producers of fluorides used for water fluoridation, that premise fails to take into account a gamut of other important facts. This observation should not be construed as excusing the emission of fluoride gases from such sources as steel production operations that produced the 1948 Donora, Pa. health disaster. However, that was half a century ago and totally inapplicable to how air pollution standards have evolved and enforced in the past five decades.

Third, if such standards had been in place and enforced fifty years ago, the cost of compliance would have been built into the price of the product. Thus, the consumers who bought US-made cars and stainless steel cutlery, etc. over the last fifty years would have had to absorb the hypothetical $10 billion in saved costs turned into illicit profit. The point being, "There's no such thing as a free lunch."

Fourth, it is extremely unlikely that for over 50 years US health authorities have been knowingly complicit in a scheme to fatten corporate profits at the expense of human health. This is tantamount to believing that every president since Franklin D. Roosevelt, and every national science advisor since Vannevar Bush have been too ignorant to know or too evil to care that they were participants in a heinous scam.

Statement

"The fluoride added to 90% of drinking water is hydrofluoric acid which is a compound of fluorine that is a chemical byproduct of aluminum, steel, cement, phosphate, and nuclear weapons manufacturing."

Response

The compound added to 91 % of all US fluoridated water is hydrofluorosilicic acid which is often mistakenly called hydrofluoric acid by non-chemists. They are chemically quite different substances. However, the confusion does not end there. The word "hydrofluorosilicic" is only one of several different names used to describe that same acid, namely: "hydrofluosilicic," "silicofluoric," "fluorosilicic," and "fluosilicic." The latter is the simplest and best to use.

Fluosilicic acid is a by-product of processes whereby phosphate "rock" is converted to phosphoric acid. This crude material is converted to phosphate fertilizer. But the crude phosphoric acid also carries a small amount of uranium that was originally in the phosphate rock. Uranium extracted from the crude phosphoric acid became the main source of uranium for nuclear weapons and power plant fuel rods for many years. Fluoride chemicals from steel, aluminum, and cement operations do not wind up in municipal water systems.

However, it is also important to understand that fluoride derivatives are produced by burning coal and in volcanic eruptions causing both indoor and outdoor air pollution and acid rainfall carrying fluoride into surface water bodies.

Statement

"Hydrofluoric acid is used to refine high octane gasoline, to make fluorocarbons and chlorofluorocarbons for freezers and air conditioners, and to manufacture computer screens, fluorescent light bulbs, semiconductors, plastics, herbicides, -- and toothpaste."

Response

Hydrofluoric acid is indeed a versatile chemical with many important and valuable uses. However, it is not used for water fluoridation and the prefix of the word "fluorescent" has nothing to do with the "fluor" in "hydrofluoric" or "fluoride."

Statement

"Once in the body, fluoride is a destroyer of human enzymes."

Response

That is the opening sentence for a series of paragraphs that purport to explain the normal biological role and physico-chemical characteristics of enzymes as well as how fluorides adversely impact enzyme functionality. It is impossible to clarify all the comments that follow it; suffice it that some essentials are in order here. First, as with most sweeping generalities, the one quoted above has its exceptions.

Recent research (Wilde LG and Yu M; "Effect of Fluoride on Superoxide Dismutase (SOD) Activity in Germinating Mung Bean Seedlings"; Fluoride 31 (2), 1998, pp 81 - 88) found that:

" ... treatment with NaF in vivo altered mitochondrial SOD activity in mung bean seedlings. It is interesting to note that NaF at low concentrations enhanced SOD activity, but depressed it at high concentrations ... "

Some enzymes are present in different forms of life (animal, insect, and plant). Hence, the fact that low concentrations of fluoride can stimulate expression of superoxide dismutase in mung bean mitochondria despite inhibitory effect at higher concentrations demonstrates that the lead sentence under "Statement" is not valid.

Enzymes are large very complicated molecules that combine polypeptides (protein polymer chains) bound to polysaccharides (carbohydrate polymer chains) in various configurations. Very often specific metal molecules or other chemical species are bound into the complex system at one or more strategic locations. These locations are the "active" sites where the main enzyme function is actually performed.

For example, acetyl-cholinesterase (AChE, an enzyme found in both mammals and insects) is key to proper "cholinergic" neurotransmission. Acetyl-choline (ACh) is a small molecule that carries the neural signal across synaptic junctions. Without such signal no muscle will be stimulated to do its job. If the stimulation isn't quenched in a timely fashion, the muscle would remain in a contractile state (spasm). AChE is supposed to break down (ACh) once the need for muscle stimulation ends.

ACh breakdown is induced at the active site due to the specific chemical nature of that site. The process resembles separating a pair of "pop-it" beads by pulling on them with thumb and forefinger of each hand. For that to occur, the ACh has to be able to get into the pocket of the active site. Any other molecule that gets to the active site and sits there acts as a "competitive" enzyme inhibitor.

However, the natural shape of the AChE molecule is also optimized for both letting the ACh get into the pocket of the active site and promoting the mechanical action (vibration) that splits the acetyl portion from the choline portion of ACh. Anything that distorts the shape of the enzyme molecule or impedes its ability to vibrate in a natural mode can cause "non-competitive inhibition." Such an effect can be more powerful and longer-lasting than the effect of a competitive inhibitor that does not get permanently bound into an active site.

Fluoride in the form of hydrogen fluoride (due to fluoride exposure to stomach pH) is most likely to produce competitive inhibition. However, a more powerful inhibition effect has been observed when AChE has been exposed to a fluoride complex such as [SiF6]2- the silicofluoride anion. This is believed to be due to the incompletely dissociated species [SiF2(OH)4]2- which produces "non-competitive" inhibition by attaching itself to polypeptide chains and either distorting their conformation or interfering with their freedom to vibrate naturally.

Statement

"Bone is collagen. We already saw how fluoride disrupts the formation of enzymes necessary for collagen production. So it's no wonder then that the thin brittle bones characteristic of osteoporosis are the result of fluoridation."

Response

Bone is not collagen. Bone is an inorganic crystalline mineral structure comprising mainly hydroxyapatite (calcium phosphate) built up on a collagen scaffold. See: http://www.rcsb.org/pdb/molecules/pdb4_1.html.

"About one quarter of all of the protein in your body is collagen. Collagen is a major structural protein, forming molecular cables that strengthen the tendons and vast, resilient sheets that support the skin and internal organs. Bones and teeth are made by adding mineral crystals to collagen. Collagen provides structure to our bodies, protecting and supporting the softer tissues and connecting them with the skeleton. But, in spite of its critical function in the body, collagen is a relatively simple protein."

Damage done to bone from chronic ingestion of fluoridated water may or may not be due to damage done to collagen. However, there is a pretty good explanation for dental fluorosis due to inhibition of proteolytic enzymes. Tooth bud formation is mediated by proteins that assemble calcium and phosphate into uniform crystalline hydroxyapatite rods that comprise tooth enamel. These proteins are intended to be decomposed by enzyme action and leave the enamel in good mechanical condition. If that does not occur in a timely manner, inter-crystalline voids are created when the proteins ultimately dissolve after enamel formation is complete. The surfaces bounding the tiny voids produce "scattering" of reflected light which is the reason for the optical effect observed as "white spots" or "paper-like" enamel whiteness. If these voids harbor food detritus that has decomposed, discoloration occurs.

Another kind of cause of bone damage, osteosarcoma, might be due to radiation by alpha particle-emitting traces of uranium and its radioactive progeny contaminating the commercial silicofluorides used for water fluoridation.

Statement

"The earliest reference to brain disruption from fluoride exposure is found in a recently declassified secret Manhattan Project memo (1944):

'Clinical evidence suggests that C616 ([uranium hydrofluoride) may have
a rather marked central nervous system effect with mental confusion,
drowsiness and lassitude ... '"

Response

The internal quote defines C616 incorrectly. The chemical compound identified as uranium hydrofluoride should have been called uranium hexafluoride.

Installment 2 of 3

Statement

"In May of 1945, the city of Newburgh, NY was the first to 'try' fluoridation. One of the next cities to fall was Grand Rapids, Michigan. In July 1945, in the face of persistent warnings from the AMA, Grand Rapids succumbed to Bernays' propaganda machine and began a ten year 'test period' of fluoridation in which tooth decay rates would be monitored."

Response

Grand Rapids, Michigan, was the first city to adjust its water fluoride concentration to suppress dental caries on January 25, 1945. Newburgh, NY started to fluoridate its water with sodium fluoride about five months later.

Statement

"Dean did no research on his own ... "

Response

Dean's own work was often published in US PHS Public Health Reports (eg #56 in 1941 and #57 in 1942). He also published two articles in the AAAS Symposium "Fluorine and Dental Health" of 1942 and two articles in the AAAS symposium "Dental Caries and Fluorine" of 1946.

Statement

"The chief toxicologist for the Manhattan Project was a guy named Harold Hodge. Hodge was the first to notice the horrific effects of fluoride pollution on the local environment, and alerted his superiors in several memos, which have now been declassified."

Response

Environmental pollution by fluoride gases was well known long before Hodge's work for the Manhattan Project. In 1912, cattle in Italy suffered an epidemic of osteomalacia near a phosphate fertilizer producing plant. During World War I, cattle grazing near a Swiss aluminum factory suffered similar endemic problems and the same occurred in Norway circa 1934 (with other examples cited in Roholm K; "Fluorine Intoxication"; H. K. Lewis & Co. Ltd; London 1937; and Roholm K, Journal of Industrial Hygiene and Toxicology, Vol. 19, No. 3, 1937).

Statement

"By 1946 the government and industry were out to arm the world with atomic, and eventually nuclear, weaponry."

Response

The United States government has never been interested in arming the world with atomic or nuclear weaponry. Apart from that, the two terms "atomic" and "nuclear" describe identical forms of weaponry. Perhaps the statement should have read:

"The US government, in collaboration with industry, has had an ongoing program to develop nuclear devices for national defense. Related science has also been employed in peaceful use of nuclear power all over the world."

Statement

"Fluoridation gathered momentum, supported by the billions that could be made from selling a toxic waste to city water providers ... "

Response

The reader is invited to do his/her own arithmetic from the following facts:

(a) Communities supplying fluoridated water serve about 160 million people;

(b) The per capita water consumption in the US is about 200 gallons per day, including all uses by households, hotels, restaurants, and commercial establishments served by public suppliers. (Private wells are of no interest here);

(c) Water weighs 8.34 pounds per gallon;

(d) Taking into account "a", "b", and "c" plus the fact that one pound of fluoride is added to a million pounds of water to achieve 1 ppm of F, it will seen that about 85 million pounds of fluoride is supplied annually in chemicals sold to water systems that fluoridate the water of 160 million people;

(e) A conservative net cost for all the chemicals used to supply the 85 million pounds of fluoride would be less than $1.5 per pound of released fluoride;

(f) Thus, using conservative assumptions, the total sales of the fluoridating chemicals sold in the US today would be less than $130 million.

Statement

"The fluoride added to water is a toxic industrial byproduct in a form nature could never have come up with."

Response

The toxic industrial by-products used to treat 91 % of all fluoridated water in the US are fluosilicic acid and its sodium salt, sodium fluosilicate, both of which are produced from silicon tetrafluoride gas (SiF4) that is collected in water. SiF4 gas is generated when an ore called "phosphate rock" is processed into fertilizer grade phosphate. During that processing a small amount of uranium that was originally present in the phosphate rock is also recovered.

Sodium fluosilicate was identified as being a natural constituent of so-called "mineral waters" in 1906. It has also been identified as the source of the "naturally occurring fluoride" available in many of the communities which do not "adjust" their water to 1 ppm of fluoride. However, being "natural" does not mean free of toxic effects. Much natural fluoridated water also carries radionuclides.

There is substantial evidence that chronic ingestion of "natural" fluoride may be as harmful as chronic ingestion of the industrial by-product silicofluorides used to adjust potable water to 1 ppm of fluoride. Research by Ionel Rapaport in the 1950s and 1960s associated natural fluoridated water with Down Syndrome. Child blood lead data analyzed by Masters and Coplan in 1998 indicated that natural fluoride water and silicofluoride treated water both contributed to elevated blood lead levels.

Installment 3 of 3

Statement

"To reverse the policy of fluoridation now would be for the ADA, the EPA, the FDA, and the USPHS, Congress, and all the municipal water polluters in the US to admit that they made a mistake. Not a good move for re-election."

Response

The FDA has no jurisdiction over water fluoridation and no role in promoting it. The EPA is responsible for protection against toxic compounds in water, but high EPA officials admit they know nothing about the toxicity of silicofluoridated water.

Statement

"To criticize fluoridation as a policy would challenge the billions of tons of fluoride being released into the air and water by the nuclear, aluminum, phosphate, steel, glass, cement, and petrochemical industries."

Response

Suffice it to note that less than 80 million pounds of hydrogen fluoride, the most prevalent fluoride compound reported in the EPA Toxic Release Inventory (TRI), is discharged into the environment annually. That is about a million times smaller than "billions of tons." Moreover, the total amount of waste fluoride that is produced and treated in one way or another without being released into the environment is less than 500 million pounds, ergo about 100,000 times smaller than "billions of tons."

Statement

"Fluoride research is a huge area. The fact that most studies have been almost completely suppressed for the past 50 years mars many illusions about the democratic process."

Response

Some research results may have been suppressed, but many of the journals that have carried reports providing data favorable to the policy of water fluoridation have also published reports providing data that do not support such policy. Besides, democracy has nothing to do with scientific integrity. The predicate of democracy is the right to speak and vote, whether these rights are exercised from a basis of ignorance and deceit or knowledge and integrity. Science is not a "social construct" as some "post-modern" arguments suggest. The essence of the scientific method is objective evidence that is subject to verification and refutation. Being certain their "truth" cannot be refuted with objective evidence, fluoridation proponents refuse to discuss facts while leveling ad hominem attacks on those holding opposite views.

Statement

" ... elemental minerals are the least absorbed of all types. Elemental means from rocks, and that's the kind that would be in spring water, and therefore in filtered water, except for reverse osmosis."

Response

The term "elemental minerals" is not used in scientific discourse. "Elemental means from rocks" is also not part of scientific language. Some chemical elements are found in essentially pure form but most occur chemically bound with other elements in solid, liquid and gaseous compounds. Many of these compounds exist in nature, (eg water, limestone, carbon dioxide) but a vast number are synthesized by the chemical industry or produced by man in other human activities such as driving cars with internal combustion engines burning gasoline.

As for the solutes dissolved in water that comes from aquifers below the surface of the earth, these span a gamut of hundreds of possible dissolved species comprising single elements or compounds. Most of the latter are called "minerals" which are naturally occurring, crystalline inorganic, homogeneous solids of definite chemical composition. Some are dissolved compounds such as arsenic sulfides.

There is nothing about being natural or a natural mineral that ipso facto makes the substances dissolved out of rocks healthy. Lead in certain geological formations is just as toxic as lead compounds flaking off of painted porch railings.

Concluding Comment

There are times when ardent advocacy inflicts more damage on his cause than the advocate intends. In fact, it sometimes seems that an opponent of water fluoridation has gone out of his way to provide the supporters of that indefensible policy with all the ammunition they could possibly use to demean the credibility of anyone who dares to express an opposite view. By using exaggerated polemic cant rather than verifiable facts, the case in hand is an example of that unfortunate situation.

Myron J. Coplan

February 11, 2002

Related Links:

Fluoride Action Network

Sierra Activist