"Most men can seldom accept even the most obvious truth
if it would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions
which they proudly taught to others, and which they have woven,
thread by thread, into the fabric of their own lives." – Tolstoy
Water Fluoridation – Sales Pitch vs. Reality Check
by John D. MacArthur
References, Links, and Further Discussion #1-11
(References #12-24 and #25-33 are on separate pages.)
1) "A child-sized toothbrush covered with a full strip of toothpaste holds approximately 0.75 - 1.0 g of toothpaste, and each gram of fluoride toothpaste, as formulated in the United States, contains approximately 1.0 mg of fluoride." (CDC, MMWR, Vol. 50/No. RR-14, Aug. 17, 2001)
The CDC then cautions parents and caregivers of children under six years to "place no more than a pea-sized amount (0.25 g) of toothpaste on the toothbrush, brush the child's teeth (recommended particularly for preschool-aged children) or supervise the toothbrushing, and encourage the child to spit excess toothpaste into the sink to minimize the amount swallowed."
The required warning on fluoride toothpaste labels.
Water fluoridated at 1 ppm (parts per million) has 1 mg of fluoride per liter (34 fluid ounces), so 8.5 ounces or about a cup of tap water has the same 0.25 mg dose of fluoride that's in a pea-sized dab of toothpaste. (For water fluoridated at 1.2 ppm, 7 ounces has 0.25 mg of fluoride. At 0.7 ppm, 12 ounces.)
Fluoride in Tap Water, a short video by Dr. Bill Osmunson, clearly conveys the dosage reality check.
Bernays knew it didn't matter how much a doctor actually knows, and still today most white-coated advice about fluoride is merely a repetition of the sales pitch doctors and dentists themselves had been indoctrinated with.
"The very same professionals and institutions who told us that fluoride was safe said much the same about lead, asbestos or DDT, or persuaded us to smoke more cigarettes." – Christopher Bryson
But when health professionals or organizations actually do a reality check, they invariably stop supporting or endorsing water fluoridation, as the American Kidney Foundation recently did. (See the press release and watch a video that details the risks of fluoride for kidney patients.)
In his 2000 testimony to the Oregon Senate Health & Human Services Committee, House Representative Alan Bates, a physician, said it was a revelation to him that fluoridation might in fact be a problem: "I have been unsuccessful at this point to tell you that fluoridation is absolutely safe in our society....The difficulty that I've had in the last week gaining good outcome data has been a bit of a surprise to me....I hate to admit that after all these years, we've been touting fluoride without having good background from it that we've all personally checked out."
Now a State Senator, Dr. Bates has continued to review the latest scientific studies and is clearly opposed to water fluoridation.
Dr. Hardy Limeback, BSc, PhD, DDS, Associate Professor and Head, Preventive Dentistry at the University of Toronto, has given us a detailed explanation, "Why I am now officially opposed to adding fluoride to drinking water."
In 1943, the American Medical Association warned: "Fluorides are general protoplasmic poisons....The sources of fluorine intoxication are drinking water containing 1 part per million or more of fluorine." (JAMA, Sep. 18, 1943)
In its October 1944 magazine, the American Dental Association editorialized: "Our knowledge of the subject certainly does not warrant the introduction of fluorine in community water supplies. We do know that the use of the drinking water containing as little as 1.2 to 3.0 parts per million of fluorine will cause such developmental disturbances in bones as osteosclerosis, spondylosis and osteopetrosis, as well as goiter."
The above citations are from The Fluoride Deception (page 99, footnote 21). Watch an interview with author Christopher Bryson.
When NIDR statisticians Brunelle & Carlos analyzed data collected in the late '80s from more than 39,000 U.S. school children, they concluded, "Children who had always been exposed to community water fluoridation had mean DMFS scores about 18% lower than those who had never lived in fluoridated communities."
DMFS = Decayed, Missing, and Filled permanent tooth Surfaces. Children aged 5-17 years have at least 100 tooth surfaces in their 24 to 28 teeth, and as many as 140 if all biting-surfaces are included (but Brunelle & Carlos failed to specify a number).
In Table 6 (shown below), that 18% difference for all ages was found by dividing 0.60 (3.39 minus 2.79) by 3.39. But 18% is very misleading, which is obvious when looking at the similarly calculated result for five-year-olds. A mere 0.07 tooth surface is considered a 70% difference!
2a) In 1939, the U.S. Department of Agriculture claimed: "Fluorine interferes with the normal calcification of the teeth during the process of their formation....It is especially important that fluorine be avoided during the period of tooth formation, that is from birth to the age of 12 years...when water containing even as little as 1 part per million is used." (Yearbook of Agriculture, p. 212)
3) "Particularly good examples of blatant statistical misconduct were found in the Public Health Service reports. The announced opinions and published papers favoring mechanical fluoridation of public drinking water are especially rich in fallacies....Many of the blunders were so glaring that I gave them to my beginning freshman classes in statistics....The students see through them straightaway, and are afforded great amusement." (Hubert A. Arnold, PhD, Department of Mathematics, University of California, Davis, 1980)
4) "Recent trends in dental caries in U.S. children and the effect of water fluoridation," Journal of Dental Research 1990;69 (Special Issue); Page 723-727, J.A. Brunelle and J.P. Carlos, Epidemiology Branch, National Institute of Dental Research (NIDR), National Institutes of Health.
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TABLE 6
MEAN DMFS OF U.S. CHILDREN WITH PERMANENT TEETH BY AGE AND WATER FLUORIDATION EXPOSURE |
|||
|
Life-long Water Fluoridation
Exposure
|
No Water Fluoridation
Exposure
|
||
|
Age
|
Mean DMFS*
|
Mean DMFS*
|
Percent Difference
|
|
5
|
0.03
|
0.10
|
70
|
|
6
|
0.14
|
0.14
|
0
|
|
7
|
0.36
|
0.53
|
32
|
|
8
|
0.64
|
0.79
|
19
|
|
9
|
1.05
|
1.33
|
21
|
|
10
|
1.64
|
1.85
|
11
|
|
11
|
2.12
|
2.63
|
19
|
|
12
|
2.46
|
2.97
|
17
|
|
13
|
3.43
|
4.41
|
22
|
|
14
|
4.05
|
5.18
|
22
|
|
15
|
5.53
|
6.03
|
8
|
|
16
|
6.02
|
7.41
|
19
|
|
17
|
7.01
|
8.59
|
18
|
|
All Ages
|
2.79
|
3.39
|
18
|
| * All means adjusted to age and gender distribution of total U.S. population ages 5-17. | |||
For an accurate and more realistic interpretation, compare healthy undecayed teeth. Using the conservative total of 100 tooth surfaces, fluoridated kids had 97.21 undecayed surfaces. Unfluoridated kids had slightly less, 96.61. Dividing the same 0.60 difference by either number results in only a 0.6% difference in healthy teeth attributed to fluoridated water – well within any margin of error (which Brunelle & Carlos also failed to specify). When calculated based on 140 tooth surfaces, this is reduced to a 0.4% difference.
Looking at it another way, if one person had $97.21 in spending money while another had $96.61, would that 60 cents be called an 18% difference?
"Here is an appropriate analogy: an individual weighs 300 pounds and studies show that while on Diet A, he will lose two pounds, while Diet B will help him lose four pounds. That means Diet B is 100% more effective than A. However, if all goes well, the individual will still weigh 296 pounds." (Brian D. McLean, BSc, DDS, "Motherhood, Apple Pie and Fluoridation")
Thus, fluoridation's flagship claim of an 18% reduction in tooth decay is 30 times higher than the insignificant 0.6% improvement in oral health shown by the data.
As reported by Chemical & Engineering News: "An analysis of national survey data collected by the National Institute of Dental Research (NIDR) concludes that children who live in areas of the U.S. where the water supplies are fluoridated have tooth decay rates nearly identical with those who live in nonfluoridated areas." ("New Studies Cast Doubt on Fluoridation Benefits," Bette Hileman, May 8, 1989)
See the detailed analysis of this National Survey of U.S. Schoolchildren done by John A. Yiamouyiannis, PhD, who first exposed NIDR's statistical spin.
4a) The NIDR report by Brunelle & Carlos is the only significant epidemiological study for the effectiveness of water fluoridation cited (footnote #98) in the CDC's most comprehensive fluoride document, "Recommendations for Using Fluoride to Prevent and Control Dental Caries in the United States," Aug. 17, 2001.
And it's still the government's best rationale for fluoridation. On March 6, 2008, Dr. William Bailey, DDS, MPH (Dental Officer for CDC's Oral Health Division) cited Brunelle & Carlos when a Fairbanks, Alaska council member asked him for "the best study that you can come up with that's recent." (Read a comprehensive critique of Dr. Bailey's statements by the Fluoride Action Network.)
Similar results showing that more water fluoridation is associated with more tooth decay were found two decades later. (See References #10 & #15.)
Surgeon General David Satcher endorsed the 2000 Report Card, saying its "findings support what we found nationally in the surgeon general's report." (USA Today, Oct. 9, 2000) Yet despite the lack of correlation between fluoridation and tooth decay, a year later Satcher claimed "community water fluoridation has been the cornerstone of caries prevention in the United States." (His often-cited Surgeon General Statement).
Sales Pitch: "Since 1950, U.S. Surgeon Generals have committed their support for community water fluoridation."
Reality Check: Fluoride promoters like to wave the surgeon-general flag, hoping we will stand up, salute it, and do as they've done – not question authority, especially when it's America's White-Coat-in Chief. But as spokesperson for the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS), the Surgeon General has to rave about water fluoridation. "PHS has historically been the principal source of funds for fluoride research; but ever since June 1950, PHS has been officially committed to and responsible for promoting fluoridation. Thus, the agency has a fundamental conflict of interest." ("Voices of Opposition have been Suppressed since early days of Fluoridation," Bette Hileman, Chemical & Engineering News, Aug. 1, 1988)
Also, as the Union of EPA Scientists has pointed out: "Existing data indicate that subsets of the population may be unusually susceptible to the toxic effects of fluoride and its compounds. These populations include the elderly, people with deficiencies of calcium, magnesium, and/or vitamin C, and people with cardiovascular and kidney problems." (A Toxicological Profile for Fluorides, U.S. Public Health Service, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, April 1993)
Christopher Bryson reported in The Fluoride Deception (p. 224) that following the introduction of fluoride into city waters, "Newburgh's heart-disease rate was found by researchers to be one of the highest in the United States....Heart disease also doubled just five years into the nation's other early fluoridation experiment, in Grand Rapids, Michigan." (For more about Newburgh and Kingston NY, see Reference #18.)
A huge red flag was raised in 2001 when a study revealed that "sodium fluoride causes dramatic endothelial cell barrier dysfunction." (Am J Physiol Lung Cell Mol Physiol, 2001 Dec;281(6):L1472-83) With such high rates of cardiovascular disease in the United States, how can the medical community continue to ignore fluoride's adverse effects on endothelial cells that line blood vessels?
"The amount of the fluoride contained in the water used for mixing infant formula may influence a child's risk for developing enamel fluorosis." (CDC, www.cdc.gov/fluoridation/safety/infant_formula.htm)
In 2006, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration rejected any health claims for bottled fluoridated water marketed to infants.
The National Research Council reported in 2006 that the level of fluoride in mothers' milk in a nonfluoridated community is only four parts per billion. That means water fluoridated at 1 ppm has a 250-times higher concentration of fluoride than breast milk! ("Fluoride in Drinking Water: A Scientific Review of EPA's Standards," page 40, Table 2-6. See Reference #32.)
What's more, nature has mechanisms to protect the developing brain.
Even when a mother's fluoride or lead intake is elevated, her breast milk is extremely low in these two neurodevelopmental toxins.
"There is a kind of physiological 'barrier' which largely prevents fluoride from entering breast milk, even when the mother is on a relatively high fluoride diet. This barrier could have evolved to protect the developing infant in environments which have naturally higher than average fluoride levels....One wonders what the massive unnatural overdose of fluoride is doing to bottle-fed infants, particularly since it is now known that breast-fed infants remove fluoride from their bones and excrete more fluoride than they ingest." ("Fluoride: New Grounds for Concern," Mark Diesendorf, BSc, PhD, The Ecologist, 1986)
"Even among a population of women with relatively high lifetime exposure to lead, levels of lead in breast milk are low." – Dr. Adrienne S. Ettinger ("Levels of Lead in Breast Milk and Their Relation to Maternal Blood," Environmental Health Perspectives, June 2004 and American Journal of Epidemiology, Jan 2006)
Nationally, the CDC says "approximately 8 million persons received water with sufficient naturally occurring fluoride concentrations." (Populations Receiving Optimally Fluoridated Public Drinking Water – United States, 1992-2006, July 11, 2008)
Why do we never hear about the better oral health they're supposed to have? The failure of naturally fluoridated water to reduce cavities must not be ignored, because this unscientific assumption was the original rationale for artificially fluoridating drinking water. It was based on cherry-picked anecdotal (and falsified) observations, plus "a hunch" by H. Trendley Dean, a dentist working for the U.S. Public Health Service in 1939. Dean later later became the first director of the NIDR and held a senior position with the American Dental Association. (See The Fluoride Deception, Chapter 6, "How the Manhattan Project Sold Us Fluoride.")
"The dental investigators who came to our [Hereford, Texas] County, some fifteen years ago did, in my opinion, make a serious mistake when they gave fluorine the credit for our good teeth, and overlooked the quality of food grown in our rich, well mineralized soil....Why use a poison, when correct food will maintain our bodies free from diseases and tooth decay? It is hellish and non-American to put poison in city water supplies and force citizens to drink it." (George W. Heard, DDS, March 5, 1954)
References, Links, and Further Discussion
Charts of CDC data compare states' water fluoridation
5) See Table 9 of the Brunelle & Carlos, NIDR study. Even though region III (the Midwest) was America's most fluoridated region (74%), kids living in its fluoridated communities actually had worse tooth decay than kids in that region's unfluoridated communities.
6) Press release: "OHSU dental school hopes poor report card will be a wake-up call," Nov. 22, 2000
7) Oregon kids had the same or lower cavity rates than kids in 19 other states, 14 of which had more water fluoridation. Twenty-seven states had "incomplete" records. In other words, their populations were being dosed with fluoride, even though state health departments didn't know if it was doing any good.
8) The Bulletin editorial board members seem to believe they're qualified to recommend our drinking water be used as a drug-delivery system. "Sure, Central Oregon should be grateful for its clean water. But the stuff could be even better." ("Now how about fluoride?" May 5, 2004) Never mind that studies estimate about 1% of people have an allergic reaction to fluoride.
9) The FDA admits it has no evidence that ingesting fluoride is safe or effective in preventing cavities. See the FDA's letter to Congress confirming the agency has not approved the drug fluoride.
9a) "Infants less than one year old may be getting more than the optimal amount of fluoride (which may increase their risk of enamel fluorosis) if their primary source of nutrition is powdered or liquid concentrate infant formula mixed with water containing fluoride....If using a product that needs to be reconstituted, parents and caregivers should consider using water that has no or low levels of fluoride." ("Interim Guidance on Reconstituted Infant Formula," American Dental Association, Nov. 9, 2006)
10) 2007 Oregon Smile Survey, Oregon Department of Human Services. (See also Reference #15.)
11) According to the Oregon Dental Association, Oregon has 35 water systems with natural levels of fluoride considered optimal for protecting teeth." ("Tooth decay on rise for kids across U.S., rampant in Central Oregon," The Bulletin, May 6, 2007)
#12-24 | #25-33
rates with adverse health effects.