The Hazards of Fluoride in Food & Water!

The deputy Premier, Paul Lucas, said in Parliament “the government couldn’t introduce a four year term in Parliament without a referendum, we should not cut the people out of that decision, a referendum is at the heart of democracy." Well said Mr. Lucas, but why did your government mandate Water fluoridation without a referendum and cut out the people ? Could you answer that simple question please? - Werner - Click on picture to enlarge

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Posted by Mel, selected from Natural Solutions magazine Oct 24, 2009 9:01 am filed under: Family Life, Babies, Children, Diet & Nutrition, Eating for Health, Health & Wellness, fluoride, water. By Jeff Green, Natural Solutions

They say that hindsight is 20/20 vision. Today, as the devastating effects of chemicals in our water, food and environment surface, we need to look back and see where things went wrong. In fact, it turns out that most chemicals were introduced into the environment without adequate testing, often by means of publicity blitzes that misled the public.

Fluoride is a case in point. When the House Committee on Science recently asked for studies proving the safety or effectiveness of the substances that are used in 90 percent of the nation’s fluoridation programs, the Environmental Protection Agency responded that it could not identify any long-term studies proving that fluoride is safe. Research over the past few years, however, has shown that fluoridation of water presents a danger, not an advantage, for our health.

Why we are at risk. Over 50 years ago, when public policy makers proposed fluoridation of drinking water, they presented valid-sounding arguments. Many communities rushed to add fluoride to their public drinking water, presuming that the additive would fight tooth decay. Now, that argument itself is decaying.

Policy makers, heavily influenced by industry lobbyists, had bought a bill of goods, and without proper toxicological studies had standardized what they considered to be an effective amount of fluoride. The standard was based on a hypothetical average amount of water that a person drinks each day. But they failed to consider the effect of ingesting larger amounts or to take into account other sources of fluoride–including fluoride in our foods.

According to the July 2000 cover story in the Journal of the American Dental Association, what limited benefit may be attributed to fluoride, if any, probably comes from direct application to the tooth. Even then, swallowed fluoride can cause fluorosis, a darkening or mottling of the tooth and erosion of the enamel.

More significantly, fluoride has been tied to serious health problems. This is compounded when the source of fluoride is hazardous waste from the phosphate fertilizer industry. The actual substances in most fluoridation programs are residues captured from the air quality control smokestack scrubbers of fertilizer producers in central Florida. This clever but less-than-ethical business ploy, which forces toxic waste upon an unsuspecting public in the name of good health, is thought by many to be just the tip of the iceberg.

According to Dr. Hardy Limeback, head of the Department of Preventive Dentistry at the University of Toronto, this waste contains not just fluoride but also lead, arsenic and radium–all carcinogenic–and these are dumped untreated into our drinking water. Furthermore, ingesting fluoride may increase the transport of these heavy metals across the blood-brain and gut-blood barriers.

According to studies of more than 400,000 children in three states, the presence of fluoride chemicals results in a doubling of the incidence of the danger level of lead in children’s blood, which is correlated with increased learning disabilities, hyperactivity and violence. A highly significant animal study found an increased incidence of aluminium in the brain from fluoride exposures equal to the concentrations found in fluoridated drinking water, resulting in kidney disease and brain lesions similar to those of humans with Alzheimer’s disease.

Dr. Limeback had been Canada’s leading authority and primary promoter of fluoridation for about 30 years. Now, he actively warns people of the dangers of fluoride, advising mothers never to make baby formula with fluoridated tap water and never ever to let children under 3 use toothpaste with fluoride. Similarly, both the American Dental Association and the American Academy of Paediatrics have had to revise their recommendations and ask parents not to prepare baby formulas with fluoridated water.

Fluoride has been long recognized as an enzyme inhibitor, causing a range of undesirable side effects, including the suppression of thyroid hormones. (In fact, in the 1920s a common treatment for patients with overactive thyroids was a bath with added fluoride in order to allow fluoride absorption through their skin.) Similarly, fluoride may have health consequences for diabetics by impacting the effectiveness of insulin. Fluoride also inhibits the hormones melatonin and serotonin, which are vital for proper health. Of grave concern is the finding that fluoride inhibits or destroys acetylcholinesterase, an enzyme essential for proper neurotransmission for learning and memory.

Several reports published in the Journal of the American Medical Association also correlate fluoridated water with increased risk of hip fractures as a result of its deleterious effect on bones, especially in women during their menopausal years, a time identified as a window of injury. And a University of Toronto study indicates that residents of cities that fluoridate have double the fluoride in their hip bones compared to the general population. Comparing the statistics on two Canadian cities, Toronto (which has fluoridated the public water supply for almost 40 years) and Vancouver (which does not fluoridate), Dr. Limeback states that Vancouver has a lower incidence of dental cavities, thus further discrediting the anti-cavity theory.

When questioned about the safety of drinking fluoridated water, the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Disease, a part of the National Institutes of Health, acknowledged that a person who drinks large quantities of water should drink bottled water. Charles Gordon Heyd, past president of the American Medical Association, put it more bluntly, stating that fluoride is a corrosive poison. (We already know that fluoride has been used as rat poison.) But that still doesn’t tell us the whole story. A significant part of the fluoride problem goes back to the original assumptions of those who heavily promoted fluoridation years ago: that the optimal amount of ingested fluoride was 1 mg and that the average child ingested 1 liter of water per day (1 mg of fluoride per litre=1 part per million, or 1 ppm). The calculations did not take into account the safety of higher exposure levels. They also assumed that there were no other sources of ingested fluoride. Hindsight now confirms that the assumptions were dead wrong.

Fluoride in our foods. New amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act require that risk assessments for toxic contaminants, such as fluoride in public drinking water, take into account the total exposure from all sources. All this leads to the largely unknown fact that there is fluoride in our foods and beverages–enough fluoride to register above the level acceptable by law.

Remember that tap water is not the body’s only source of water. Because of crop irrigation, fluoride can be absorbed through the roots (as with green and black tea) or the leaves. Water added during food manufacturing is responsible for the presence of fluoride in beverages such as sodas, teas and juices, as well as in prepared foods, such as cereals and other products where water is an ingredient.

Pesticides made with fluoride present another significant source. As a result of fluoride-based pesticide residues on produce, researchers are finding that lettuce, tomatoes, cabbage, raisins and other common foods are also subject to even higher exposure levels than found in fluoridated water. The common pesticide cryolite (sodium aluminium fluoride containing both aluminium and fluoride) is found at alarmingly high rates in foods that easily absorb chemicals, such as potato skins, white grapes and strawberries. Commercial iceberg lettuce, in addition to having no nutritional value, may contain 180 ppm of cryolite.

Buying organic produce is an important health matter. However, in a fluoridated community, organic produce will still absorb fluoride during irrigation. Even when the water in a given community complies with the 1 ppm rule, the concentrations found simply in foods can exceed those limits. Ten years ago, a government toxicological profile had already revealed that due to fluoride in foods, beverages and oral care products, communities with fluoridated water were ingesting three to seven times the recommended level, far surpassing the margin of safety.

Can you filter the fluoride out? It’s not as simple as it sounds. The fluoride ion is smaller than the water molecule; so simple filtration devices will not remove fluoride. A more expensive and elaborate system is needed, such as distillation or reverse osmosis purification.

Even if you can remove fluoride from your water at home, you may still be subject to ingesting fluoride from foods served at restaurants or from prepared packaged foods, because manufacturers and restaurant owners may not opt to use these expensive systems.

Labelling requirements are limited to products making health claims, so it can be difficult to determine the existence of fluoride in your foods. Even the process of turning juices into concentrates can present a problem, because the technique for removing the water leaves all additives and chemicals behind in the concentrate: If the water in the community where the juice is processed contains fluoride, it will remain in the concentrate when the water is evaporated off. If you add fluoridated water to reconstitute the juice, you have double the problem.

Fluoride from other sources.
Toothpaste, of course, is a common source of fluoride, and it is intentionally produced with much higher fluoride levels than are found in water. Check the label on your toothpaste. If you see a warning to keep the product out of reach of children and to contact a poison control centre if more than a dab is ingested, then you know that it must be dangerously poisonous.

Fluoride gel treatments from dentists contain such high concentrations (12,000 to 20,000 ppm) that if absorbed through the mouth, the gel can cause nausea and if accidentally swallowed, it can even cause death. Fortunately, the normal bodily response is to reject the acutely toxic substance by vomiting.

The amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act address the importance of studying the cumulative effect in the body of chemical contaminants, such as fluoride, and their synergistic, or combined, interactive effects with other chemical contaminants.

Since the skin absorbs water, we can also be exposed to fluoride and other chemicals–notably chlorine–from showers, baths and swimming pools. We know that both these chemicals are harmful. We do not know about their interactions. Moreover, it appears that fluoride, like other harmful chemicals, does accumulate in the tissues.

To demonstrate how pervasive the problem is, few people are aware of the presence of fluoride through yet another vehicle: commonly prescribed drugs. Antidepressants such as Prozac, diet pills such as Phen-Fen (which was pulled off the market in 1997 because it caused injuries and deaths related to heart valve damage) and the so-called date rape drug Rohypnol all contain fluoride. The most commonly used anaesthetics for general surgery are also big offenders.

Despite all this, you can take charge of your health. Monitor the products you use and voice your opposition to public fluoridation.