Fluoridation is nothing to Celebrate

New York – January 25, 2013 -- Sixty-eight years ago while experimental trials were still underway, public water supplies were dosed with fluoride chemicals promising to safely reduce tooth decay, put dentists out of business and save millions of dollars on dental care. Current science tells us none of that came to pass; but fluoridation is still celebrated as if it did, reports the Fluoride Action Network (FAN).

Paul Connett, PhD, FAN Executive Director says, "The fluoridation experiment has been an abject failure. Public health officials have abandoned their duty to protect health and have forfeited their integrity by ignoring growing science showing fluoride has the potential to harm health.”

Here’s some of what’s occurred since 1945:

1.) Dental expenditures have grown, along with the number of dental professionals, dental schools, and industry profits.

2) Even with 73.9% of the U.S. population receiving fluoridated water, the incidence and severity of children's primary tooth decay recently increased (CDC).

3) Fluoride overexposure is a new and growing epidemic afflicting up to 60% of US adolescents with dental fluorosis (white spotted, yellow, brown and/or pitted teeth). Early fluoridationists expected that no more than 10% of children would develop mild fluorosis. CDC reports that Black and Mexican-American children suffer significantly higher rates of the more severe forms of dental fluorosis.

4) An expert panel reviewed fluoride’s toxicology for the National Research Council and released a landmark report in 2006. The panel found that the maximum contaminant level for fluoride permitted in drinking water is not protective of human health and that infants, children, and several other subsets of the U.S. population are being over-exposed. The panel noted the following adverse effects from this overexposure: broken bones, pre-clinical skeletal fluorosis which manifests as arthritic-type pain, and severe dental fluorosis.

5) Thirty-six studies report an association between fluoride and reduced IQ in children - some at levels considered safe in the US. Early fluoridationists didn’t consider fluoride/brain effects.

6) Fluoride has been found in the pineal gland of elderly cadavers at significantly high levels (up to 21,000 parts per million). The pineal is an endocrine gland located between the two hemispheres of the brain.

7) U.S. formula-fed infants receive up to 250 times more fluoride than breast-fed infants. This is a significant exposure that public health officials refuse to discuss.

When fluoridation began, fluoride was believed to be an essential nutrient for healthy teeth; but current science proves it is neither. Fluoride is a drug with side effects. The FDA classifies fluoride supplements as unapproved drugs and reports “this drug has not been found by FDA to be safe and effective,” because no safety experiments were ever performed.

Even fluoride varnish, containing 26,600 ppm fluoride, was never safety-tested but is applied to teeth of babies as young as 6-months-old which “leads to a significant increase in urine fluoride.”

“There is no scientifically-valid reason to ingest fluoride. Fluoridation must end.” says Connett.