As I have blogged previously, the whole notion of fluoride being safe and good for teeth is based on decades of corporations paying researchers to produce the scientific results they want – and burying research and firing and blacklisting scientists whose studies show otherwise.

A Systematic Corporate Cover-Up

As Christopher Bryson points out in his 2004 book the Fluoride Deception, it was actually mass fluoride poisoning that kick-started the environmental movement, following an air pollution disaster in 1948 that killed 20 people and sickened hundreds more. A temperature inversion and air pollution from a US Steel factory is blamed for the Donora (Pennsylvania) Death Fog. However owing to extreme pressure from the steel and aluminum industry, public health authorities colluded in a systematic cover-up of the autopsy results – which revealed the victims had toxic fluoride levels in their blood (see http://www.fluoridation.com/donora.htm).

GM researcher Charles Kettering, one of the corporate pioneers of water fluoridation, also suppressed the results of his own lab’s 1962 studies demonstrating that fluoride produced lung damage in beagles.

This sordid history also includes deliberate smear campaigns against extremely reputable doctors and scientists who published research and clinical findings showing that water fluoridation has adverse health effects:

• Dr. George Waldbott  a world famous doctor who first identified penicillin allergy and the link between smoking and emphysema. Waldbott published numerous double blind studies in the fifties showing that fluoride is harmful to human health. The result was a massive corporate smear campaign that destroyed his reputation by marginalizing and demonizing him.
• Dr William Marcus – a senior EPA toxicologist in the Office of Water, fired in 1992 for attempting to publicize studies revealing that  fluoride causes bone and liver cancer (see http://www.gaia-health.com/articles251/000293-epa-scientists-oppose-fluoridation.shtml). In 1994 Marcus won lawsuit against the federal government and was reinstated. While the EPA still refuses to ban water fluoridation, the unions representing EPA scientists have called for a moratorium (see http://www.nteu280.org/Issues/Fluoride/Press%20Release.%20Fluoride.htm).
• Dr Phyllis Mullinix – research toxicologist hired by Forsyth Dental Institute to study the effect of fluoride on the brain. Mullinex was first fired and then blacklisted in the mid-nineties when she published research showing fluoride produces memory and behavior problems in children.

Where Does Fluoride Comes From?

Although fluoride is added to municipal water supplies as a “drug” – that allegedly improves dental health – it has never been approved by the FDA. In fact most communities source their fluoride from the phosphate fertilizer industry, as hydrofluorosilicic acid. This is an extremely toxic, hazardous waste, and the EPA requires phosphate manufacturers to capture it via “wet scrubbers” in their chimneys (to prevent toxic fluoride gas from being released into the air). The resulting liquid is then loaded, unpurified, into tanker trucks and sold to cities to be added to their public water supply. In addition to fluoride, it also contains a number of heavy metals and radionucleotides (radioactive elements – mainly uranium-238, uranium-234, thorium-230, radium-226, radon-222, lead-210, and polonium-210).

Tanker transporting hydrofluorosilicic acid

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Why Have 98% of European Communities Banned Water Fluoridation

Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden all forbid water fluoridation – for five main reasons:

1. The preponderance of independent research reveals (as I blogged on Nov 30^th) that fluoridation (at levels of 7 parts per million) increases the risk of hip fracture, liver and bone cancer and lowered IQ in children – as well as being strongly implicated in an American epidemic of hypothyroidism, arthritis and infertility.

2. It ’s an absolute violation of medical ethics for a doctor to prescribe a drug, in unlimited doses (people who eat processed foods or drink large amounts of fruit juice, soft drinks and tea get much higher doses), to someone they have never met, without informed consent or ongoing monitoring of their response.

3. The World Health Organization has compared communities with and without water fluoridation and found the rate of cavities is no higher in communities who don’t fluoridate their water (and doesn’t increase when they remove it). In fact communities who don’t fluoridate seem to have somewhat better dental health. Individuals who accumulate toxic levels of fluoride (known as dental fluorisis) actually have weaker tooth enamel. (Americans have the highest rate of dental fluorosis in the world – 33% – higher (41%) in teenagers between 12-15). Research has consistently shown that fluoride only reduces tooth decay when it’s applied directly to the teeth – drinking fluoride appears to weaken the enamel.

4.  All medical and dental authorities worldwide agree that infants are at risk of fluoride toxicity if their formula is made up with fluoridated water (see http://www.fluoridealert.org/infant-warning.pdf). This poses a real health hazard to low income families, who can’t afford the luxury of distilled water. And fourth and most importantly, the vast majority of Europeans don’t want fluoride in their water.

5. The vast majority of Europeans don’t want fluoride in their water when the risks are explained to them. (The administration of any drug requires informed consent – and they don’t consent.)

Thus far 60 US communities (as a result of citizen activism) have ended fluoridation of their water supply. For support in getting the fluoride out of your water go to http://www.fluoridealert.org/

Mild Fluorosis

Moderate fluorosis

Severe fluorosis – imagine what the bones (same composition as teeth) look like