Look Ma - More Cavities

Before Crest, Procter & Gamble’s (P&G) experimental Teel toothpaste with sodium fluoride, actually caused cavities in 1940’s tests. (1) Teel was scrapped in favor of Crest, with stannous fluoride. In 1955, Crest received the American Dental Association’s (ADA) seal of approval generating loads of money for P&G. Since then, even more evidence shows fluoride could cause instead of cure tooth decay.

In February of 1972 the ADA reported that, in fluoridated cities, dentists reaped a net profit 17% higher than in nonfluoridated cities.

In fact, in their zeal to promote fluoridation as their gift to the poor, and maybe help sell more Crest, someone forgot to check tooth decay statistics against fluoridation rates. Organized dentistry actually awarded the most toothless and cavity-prone states and cities in the name of water fluoridation in 2004. (1a)

Lots of evidence shows tooth decay crises in fluoridated cities and states: (1b)

The ongoing Iowa Fluoride Study reports in March 2006 that children in fluoridated communities have more fluorosis, but no less tooth decay, than children who live in sub-optimally fluoridated areas.(9)

A 1992 University of Arizona study found that "the more fluoride a child drinks, the more cavities appear in the teeth."

After 50 years of water fluoridation, Newburgh, New York, children have more cavities than kids from never-fluoridated Kingston, New York.(2)

After Kentucky required fluoride chemicals be dispensed into drinking water to reduce cavities, tooth decay rates almost doubled in pre-school children.(3)

A majority of Asian-American children living in areas with fluoridated water suffer with the highest prevalence and the greatest amount of cavities, according to a California study.(4)

In fact, many studies show that when fluoridation ceases, cavity rates go down.(5)

African children from Uganda, enjoy fewer cavities than American children even though fluoridated toothpaste and toothbrushes are virtually unknown to them. However, Ugandan children who drink high fluoride water have more tooth decay than their equals in low fluoride districts.(6)

Based on thirty years of study on .4 million children, Teotia and Teotia report "Our findings indicate that dental caries is caused by high fluoride and low dietary calcium intakes, separately and through their interactions." (6a)

Ireland, 73% fluoridated since the 1960’s, has a higher tooth decay rate than five other European countries that don’t add fluoride chemicals into the water, according to the June 30, 2001, Irish Independent.

Consistent with previous findings, Wondwossen and colleagues found a positive association between water fluoride levels and cavities. (7)

Tooth decay declined substantially in prevalence and severity when Hong Kong children consumed less fluoride, indicative of a world-wide scientific trend revealing, with fluoride, less is best; none is better.(7a)

Dentists once predicted that fluoridation would put them out of business. Instead, after 60 years of water fluoridation and 50 years of fluoridated toothpaste, dentists make much more money than physicians while working less hours, less days and with less responsibility. (7b)


References:

(1) http://64.177.90.157/pfpc/html/bibby_radike.html

(1a) http://www.orgsites.com/ny/newyorkstatecoalitionopposedtofluoridation/_pgg1.php3

(1b) http://www.orgsites.com/ny/nyscof2/_pgg6.php3


(2) http://www.orgsites.com/ny/nyscof/_pgg2.php3

(3) http://www.orgsites.com/ny/newyorkstatecoalitionopposedtofluoridation/_pgg3.php3

(4) "The Association of Early Childhood Caries and Race/Ethnicity among California Preschool Children, by Shiboski, Gansky, Ramos-Gomez, Ngo, Isman, Pollick, Journal of Public Health Dentistry, Winter 2003, pages 38-46 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12597584

(5) http://www.fluoridealert.org/health/teeth/caries/fluoridation.html#cessation



(6a) Teotia SPS, Teotia M. (1994). Dental Caries: A Disorder of High Fluoride and Low Dietary Calcium Interactions (30 Years of Personal Experience. Fluoride 27: 59-66.

(7) 1) Community Dent Oral Epidemiol. 2004 Oct, “The relationship between dental caries and dental fluorosis in areas with moderate- and high-fluoride drinking water in Ethiopia,” by Wondwossen F, Astrom AN, Bjorvatn K, Bardsen A.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15341618

(7a) http://www.enn.com/press.html?id=97

(7b) http://www.wsjclassroomedition.com/archive/05apr/care_dentist.htm

(8)http://www.ada.org/prof/resources/pubs/adanews/adanewsarticle.asp?articleid=1350

(9) AADR 35th Annual Meeting in Orlando:
Abstract # 0153 - Dental caries and fluorosis in relation to water fluoride levels, I Hong, SM Levy, J Warren, B Broffitt http://snipurl.com/n8hg






Return to Fluoride Dangers Home: http://www.fluoridedangers.blogspot.com

Human Experiment Predicts Fluoride Dangers

New York - March 1956 - Bone defects, anemia and earlier female menstruation occur more often in children dosed with sodium fluoride-laced drinking water, according to an unprecedented human cavity-prevention experiment conducted upon the population of Newburgh, New York, reported in the March 1956 Journal of the American Dental Association. This is the first research into ingested fluoride's effects to the body and not just the teeth.

Brown and yellow discolored, but decay resistant, teeth are prevalent in populations drinking and irrigating their crops with naturally calcium-fluoridated water. Public health officials wondered if sodium fluoride injected in small doses into “fluoride-deficient” water supplies, then ingested by children and incorporated into their developing teeth, would prevent cavities without endangering their health or mottling their teeth, now called dental fluorosis.

So, ten years ago Newburgh’s faucets began spouting 1.2 parts per million (ppm) sodium fluoride. Nearby Kingston, New York, the control city for comparison purposes, was left fluoride-free. Kingston and Newburgh are thirty-five miles apart on the Hudson River and have 1940 populations of 31,956 and 28,817, respectively. In Newburgh, 500 children were examined after ten years and 405 in Kingston. Adults were never tested.

Due to political pressure, the Newburgh/Kingston study was declared a success five years ago before these ill health effects were found. As a result, many U.S. cities started fluoridation believing it is safe and effective.

Sodium fluoride ingestion is not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and is on the market as a rat poison. Once any drug is on the market for any reason, doctors are allowed to prescribe it for other diseases. Hence, many physicians and dentists are “off-labeling” sodium fluoride as a cavity preventive for children who don’t drink fluoridated water supplies, of course, in much smaller doses than needed to kill rats.

Newburgh's children were given complete physicals and x-rays, over the course of the study, from birth to age nine in the first year and up to age eighteen in the final year. “(R)outine laboratory studies were omitted in the control group during most of the study, they were included in the final examination,” according to Schlesinger and colleagues, in “Newburgh-Kingston caries-fluorine study XIII. Pediatric findings after ten years.”

The researchers also report:

“The average age at the menarche was 12 years among the girls studied in Newburgh and 12 years 5 months among the girls in Kingston.”

Hemoglobin (iron-containing part of a red blood cell): “a few more children in the range below 12.9 grams per hundred milliliters in Newburgh”

“…a slightly higher proportion of children in Newburgh were found to have a total erythrocyte (red blood cell) count below 4,400,000 per milliliter”

Knee X-rays of Newburgh children reveals more cortical bone defects, and irregular mineralization of the thigh bone.


Only twenty-five Newburgh children had eye and ear exams. Two have apparent hearing loss. Eight have abnormal vision. Even though researchers discovered more adult cataracts in surveys conducted before 1944 in communities with naturally high water fluoride concentrations (1)Newburg and Kingston adults were never checked for this defect.


Only two groups of twelve-year-old boys were tested for fluoride’s toxic kidney effects.

--------------------------------------------------


The above is a report of the 1956 Newburgh/Kingston fluoridation study as it should have been reported.

It’s the reference that’s still used today to substantiate claims that fluoridation is safe for everyone. No other comprehensive health study of water fluoridation has ever been conducted to the best of my knowledge.

The 2004 book "The Fluoride Deception," by Christopher Bryson, reveals that in addition to NYS Dep't of Health examinations “the University of Rochester conducted its own studies, measuring how much fluoride Newburgh citizens retained in their blood and tissues. Health Department personnel cooperated, shipping blood and placenta samples to the Rochester scientists,” writes Bryson. Three times as much fluoride was found in the placentas and blood samples gathered from Newburgh as from non-fluoridated Rochester, reports Bryson.

Following back the scientific references in all current fluoridation safety literature will invariably lead back to the Newburgh/Kingston study which actually failed to prove fluoridation is safe for all who drink it.

After sixty years of fluoridation fed to over 2/3 of Americans, the U.S. Surgeon General reports, tooth decay is a silent epidemic.

However, dental fluorosis is occuring across the land instead of just in isolated communities, affecting upwards of 42% of American schoolchildren, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

Reference:
(1) Fluoridation researcher, Peter Meiers, has more information about the Newburgh/Kingston study on his website:

http://pmeiers.bei.t-online.de/bartlett.htm

Newburgh-Kingston caries-fluorine study. XIII. Pediatric findings after ten years.
J Am Dent Assoc. 1956 Mar;52(3):296-306. SCHLESINGER ER, OVERTON DE, CHASE HC, CANTWELL KT.

Fluoride Harmful

Research shows that fluoride (the decay-preventative added to water and dental products) can make people sick; but improved diet and complete fluoride withdrawal can relieve symptoms.(a)

Fluoride’s harmful health effects, except to teeth, are rarely studied in the U.S. and, in fact, are often discouraged(b).

In areas of India, where food and water are naturally fluoride-abundant, severe fluoride toxicity is common and manifests as debilitating and disfiguring diseases(d). Well-known is that fluoride excess irreversibly cripples bones and crumbles teeth (skeletal and dental fluorosis, respectively).

Lesser-known is that early fluorosis warning signs, or soft tissue toxicity, are reversible with a diet adequate in calcium, vitamins C, E, other antioxidants and withdrawal of all fluoride sources (the intervention), report researchers Madhu Bhatnager and Professor (Dr.) A.K. Susheela, the CEO and Director of India’s Fluorosis Research and Rural Development Foundation.

“It is now an established fact that fluoride ingestion over a period of time can affect the structure and function of cells, tissues, organs and systems resulting in a variety of clinical manifestations," writes Dr. Susheela who researches fluoride extensively . The following symptoms can occur even from fluoride consumption at the low level added to most US water supplies.

1) aches and pain in the joints, i.e. neck, back, hip, shoulder and knee without visible signs of fluid accumulation

2) non-ulcer dyspepsia such as nausea, vomiting, pain in the stomach, bloated feeling or gas formation in the stomach, constipation followed by diarrhea

3) polyuria (frequent urination) and polydipsia (excessive thirst)

4) muscle weakness, fatigue, anemia with low hemoglobin level

5) complaints of repeated abortions/still birth

6) complaints of male infertility with abnormality in sperm morphology, oligospermia (spermatozoa deficiency in the semen), azoospermia (spermatozoa absence in the semen) and low testosterone levels.”

Susheela and Bhatnager recommend physicians consider fluoride toxicity for the above-listed patient complaints and/or any loss of shine or discoloration in the patient’s front row of teeth, which may be due to dental fluorosis.

“Pediatricians need to be educated about fluorosis. Perhaps water fluoridation and indiscriminate promotion of fluoridated dental products in the name of prevention of dental caries (cavities) need to be reviewed,” writes Susheela and Bhatnager

U.S. studies show American children are fluoride saturated, ruining their teeth with dental fluorosis; yet cavity rates are rising (1-8). These children should be studied for fluoride’s other adverse health effects and correlated to essential nutrient consumption and cavities.

Also never studied, incredibly, are the most widely-used artificial fluoride chemicals Americans drink daily - silicofluorides (j), derived from fertilizers, purposely added to water supplies, at about 1 milligram fluoride per quart of water, in an attempt to reduce tooth decay. Recent published studies indicate that children who live in silico-fluoridated communities have higher blood lead levels than children who live in sodium fluoridated or non-fluoridated communities (k).

Ironically, higher blood lead levels are also linked to higher rates of tooth decay (L) and are associated with higher rates of diseases and behavioral problems (including hyperactivity, substance abuse, and violent crime).

Fluoride is neither a nutrient nor essential to health. Fluoride deficiency does not lead to tooth decay. Poor diet causes cavities and fluoride can’t fix a poor diet.

Fluoride has been linked to many other health problems such as thyroid dysfunction, bone fractures, lowered IQ, allergic and intolerant effects and more.



(a) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12162452&dopt=Abstract

(b) http://www.fluoridealert.org/mullenix.htm



(d) http://www.fluoridealert.org/fluorosis-india.htm

(e) September, 2001, Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, “Fluoride Content of Foods Made with Mechanically Separated Chicken,” by Fein and Cerklewski http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11559124&dopt=Abstract

(f) http://bruha.com/fluoride/html/f-_in_food.html

(g) ASCD J Dent Child 2001 Jan-Feb, “Fluoride content of infant formulas prepared with deionized, bottled mineral and fluoridated drinking water http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11324405&dopt=Abstract

(h)Community Dent Oral Epidemiol 2002 Aug, "Primary tooth fluorosis and fluoride intake during the first year of life," Levy SM, et al http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12147170&dopt=Abstract

(i) March 1999 Journal of the American Dental Association “Fluorosis of the primary dentition: what does it mean for permanent teeth?” by Warren JJ, Kanellis MJ, Levy SM http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=10085657&dopt=Abstract

(j)http://ntp-server.niehs.nih.gov/htdocs/Chem_Background/ExSumPDF/Fluorosilicates.pdf

(k) http://www.fluoridealert.org/sf-masters.htm

(L) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12361944&dopt=Abstract

(1) “Are Cavity Rates Rising,” Delta Dental
http://www.deltanj.com/kids_club/news_wisdom_1002.shtml#6

(2) NBC Arkansas News Report
http://www.arkansasnbc.com/weeklys/parenting/apr02/index.shtml
“Are the amount of cavities rising in children?”

(3) University of Rochester News Release “Dental cavities on the rise again;
back to 'drill and fill'“
http://fluoride.oralhealth.org/papers/2000/eurekaalert040800.htm

(4) “Rise in tooth decay may be tied to sugary pop, sports drinks and even
bottled water,” Seattle Times
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/healthscience/134458074_cavity21.html

(5) “Early Childhood Tooth Decay,” by Stephen R. Branam, D.D.S
http://www.drbranam.com/pgeArticle_Early.htm

(6) “Special Report: Cincinnati's dental crisis,”
http://enquirer.com/editions/2002/10/06/loc_special_report.html

(7) The Wall Street Journal, “Health Journal: As kids' cavities rise, some
dentists advocate using tooth sealants,” Tara Parker-Pope, March 8, 2002

(8) “Dentists Show Fluoridation a Failure,”
http://www.healthsentinel.com/News/Flouride.htm

Return to Fluoride Dangers Home:
http://www.FluorideDangers.blogspot.com

The Politics of Fluoridation

Fluoridation was adopted more by politicking than by science according to Edward Groth III, Ph.D., Senior Scientist, with Consumers Union, publishers of the popular Consumers Reports magazine.

In a presentation made at the February 2001 Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Groth reported that, with three experimental fluoridation trials incomplete, enthusiastic fluoridation proponents successfully lobbied and persuaded the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) to endorse fluoridation in 1950 who, then with a few state dental officials, began vigorously promoting fluoridation with little, if any, scientific support.

According to Groth, whose 1973 Stanford University doctoral dissertation partially evaluated the use of scientific information in fluoridation policy-making. “There were no significant studies examining the long-term health of people in communities with naturally fluoridated water. .. (However,) exposure via drinking water, at levels not much higher than what was proposed for fluoridation, had been associated in numerous published studies, beginning around 1940, with serious adverse skeletal and neuromuscular effects, in India and other countries. Opposition to fluoridation initially came from scientists concerned about the lack of good evidence on possible health risks,” writes Groth

In order to get fluoridation passed, proponents often belittled opponents and used slick public relations schemes, while refusing to debate the issue, to get fluoridation accepted, reports Groth. Something they still do today

Said Groth, “Those who did openly oppose fluoridation were often subject of personal attack and professional reprisals. For decades, mainstream scientific journals would reject for publication any paper that did not articulate a strictly pro-fluoridation position on risk and benefit questions.”

“I myself had three manuscripts based on my doctoral dissertation rejected by U.S. public health journals in the 1970s,” says Groth. “My reviews of the evidence on risks and benefits of fluoridation were sent to anonymous pro-fluoridation referees, who found them “biased.” One editor advised that he wished to do nothing that might offer anti-fluoridationists any political leverage...(However,) I was politically outside the fray; my interest was exploring the interplay between political controversy and interpretations of scientific data. My papers were still rejected by several leading American journals in the 1970s, I believe because of a pervasive bias in favor of defending and promoting fluoridation,” writes Groth.

Groth reports of the early days of fluoridation, “ Leading PHS dental researchers lobbied every leading scientific organization, to gain endorsements of fluoridation. They cast fluoridation as a product of scientific progress under siege from anti-scientific forces, and rallied the scientific community in political support of the measure. They carried out a few studies looking for possible adverse effects of fluoridation; the studies were poorly designed and inconclusive, by today’s standards, but they found no convincing evidence of harm. The PHS declared the issues closed, the debate over. The studies were roundly criticized as inadequate and biased by leading opponents of the day but fluoridation advocates rapidly took the stance that there was no longer any scientific doubt that fluoridation was safe and effective. Their political strategy was simply to steamroll the opposition, to insist that opponents had no basis for any valid objections. They focused on political campaigning, not on research; in fact, research all but halted, as it was politically inexpedient for the PHS to be studying questions they had already declared adequately answered.”

Times haven’t changed much from the early days of fluoridation as Groth reports it. Dentists still denigrate the opposition, fund huge billboards, radio and TV spots, newspaper ads, and brochures to influence Americans to vote for fluoridation. Organized dentistry often uses their clout to censor fluoridation opponent information from reaching the media, even when it is accurate, while refusing to publicly debate the issue knowing the media likes a controversy and mostly ignores opponents otherwise.

At the same time, some dentists admit the benefits vs. the risks of fluoridation is a legitimate scientific controversy. Fluoridation may be immoral and outdated argues David Locker, BDS, PhD, professor and director of the Community Dental Health Services Research Unit, Faculty of Dentistry, University of Toronto in the November 2001, Journal of the Canadian Dental Association (http://www.cda-adc.ca/jcda/vol-67/issue-10/eng/578.html ).

And in a new devious twist, the American Dental Association, acting like teenage hackers, bought the domain name “www.fluoridealert.com” and “www.fluoridealert.net” to deceive web surfers away from fluoridation opponents’ website, http://www.fluoridealert.org , the website of the Fluoride Action Network, an international coalition of organizations opposed to fluoridation. Instead, with a slip of a “dot com,” unsuspecting web surfers are tricked to the American Dental Association’s pro-fluoridation information.

Why would dentists do such a thing? Dentistry was a maligned profession before fluoridation gave it respectability. And fluoridation birthed the National Institutes of Dental Research. Fluoridation gives organized dentistry political power as well as millions of federal tax dollars to study fluoride’s effects in humans. Many dentists are stuck in their old-time beliefs and haven’t actually read the literature themselves. Those that do often switch sides.

“Fluoridation campaigns provide a unique opportunity for dentistry to help reduce the incidence of dental disease while establishing political viability...,” according to the Journal of the American Dental Association, “Fluoridation Election Victory: A Case Study for Dentistry in Effective Political Action,” April 1981.

Also, there’s an interesting “marriage” between organized dentistry and fluoride manufacturers who fund dental journals, dental schools, research, awards, symposiums and dental meetings, buy equipment, and do much more for dentists and their organizations.

Dentists censor negative fluoride information whenever they are able to. They discourage newspapers from using fluoridation opponent letters (See http://www.mtn.org/~newscncl/determinations/det_24.html ), encourage internet news services to shut-off fluoridation opponents information (See Fluoridation and Censorship:
http://www.chirojournal.com/newsletter.php?nl=136896&ar=3128 ) while ignoring the misinformation disseminated by their own profession about fluoride and fluoridation on the internet and elsewhere.

A 1999 dental textbook, “Dentist, Dental Practice, and the Community,” by prominent researchers and dental university professors, Burt and Eklund, reports that Groth’s assessment is correct even today - that fluoridation is based more on unproved theories than scientific evidence.


END

Groth’s entire presentation can be found here: http://www.consumersunion.org/food/debate/bio1.htm
page one is at http://www.consumersunion.org/food/debate/bio.htm

Fluoridation Fails New York State

Jonathan Kozol explains life in the 100% fluoridated South Bronx (a NYC borough) in his book, Savage Inequalities, “Bleeding gums, impacted teeth and rotting teeth are routine matters for children..... Children live for months with pain that grown-ups would find unendurable. …I have seen children with teeth that look like brownish, broken sticks. I have seen teenagers who were missing half their teeth....”

Almost three fourths of New Yorkers have consumed tap water injected with fluoride for decades. Yet, New York State’s fluoridated counties and cities suffer worse dental health than those without fluoride-laced water supplies.

America’s oral health crisis is not due to lack of fluoride but because poor people can’t get dentists to fix their teeth. In fact, the American Dental Association says, “Low income is the single best predictor of high caries experience in children,” not lack of fluoridation. Low-income populations have the highest levels of dental disease but are least likely to be cared for, according to the General Accounting Office (1).

Despite fluoridation, severe tooth decay is responsible for two thirds of hospital visits by children under six in New York State (2). In New York City, fluoridated since 1965, more children required cavity-related hospitalizations, proportionately, than two of New York State's largest non-fluoridated counties, Suffolk and Nassau (Long island) whether payment was made by Medicaid or privately.(2)

One New York City hospital charged from $900 to $12,000 to treat 96 children with severely decayed teeth, excluding the dentist and anesthesiologist fees. Children needed extensive work including stainless steel crowns, extractions, root canal therapy, fillings, other restorations, periodontal procedures, surgeries and/or more. (2)

NYS hospital costs were between $2.5 and $33 million for the 2,726 childhood cavities-related surgical visits required by children under six, in 1999. (2) Even after hospital treatment, these children return with new lesions.


According to Dr. Jayanth Kumar, Director, Bureau of Dental Health, NYS Department of Health, Tooth decay "is more of a problem in poor children...We have data for New York State where it shows about 32% of poor children actually have oral health problems compared to only about 12% of non‐poor children. So what has happened over the years is tooth decay
was a problem of the rich in the last century and shifted to poor children around 1970s or so, mainly
because of access to refined sugar and processed foods."

Kumar said, "about 4,800 children are taken to operating rooms every year and more children also go to emergency rooms with dental problems. So we have been tracking these indicators. This is one of the indicators where we haven't seen improvement. Actually, it went in the opposite direction. We wanted to reduce emergency department and ambulatory surgery facility visits from 2,900 to about 1,500 over the last decade. Instead of that, it actually doubled."

According to Dr. Melinda Clark, "dental exams of preschoolers and early Head Starts in New York State reveal that 40% of children have already had dental disease. And 70% of that 41% have untreated dental decay."

Further evidence shows fluoridation neither saves NYS money nor reduces cavities:

. A 2009 NYS Dep't of Health Report reveals that, in 100% fluoridated New York City (since 1965), one third (38%) of third grade children have untreated cavities. And  25% of NYC adults (65 and older) are toothless. Compare that to the rest of the state where 16% are without teeth but is only 40% fluoridated. 

.  A 2001 study revealed that in northern Manhattan (New York City), 34% of predominantly black and Hispanic low-income  pre-schoolers had rampant tooth decay, with a staggering 6.4 decayed surfaces cavities per affected child.      

• According to New York University’s School of Dentistry, "The need for dental care is especially acute among impoverished (NYC) children, who have 60 percent more untreated cavities than their peers at higher socioeconomic levels." (4)

• Lack of oral health care for adults in Harlem is a hidden crisis, write researchers in the American Journal of Public Health. (5)

• "Adolescents in northern Manhattan (another NYC borough) have higher caries prevalence than their national counterparts,” The Journal of Public Health Dentistry, reports." (6)


• Latinos and African American seniors suffer high rates of tooth decay and tooth loss in Northern Manhattan (7), according to the Journal of Community Health.

• A higher prevalence of dental decay is found in New York City African Americans, aged 18 - 64, than found nationally, reports Dental Clinics of North America. (8)

• Dental caries, among disadvantaged 3 to 4-year-old children in northern Manhattan, are higher than the national average (9), according to Pediatric Dentistry.


• After over fifty years of water fluoridation, many children in Newburgh, New York have more cavities and more fluoride--caused discolored teeth (dental fluorosis) than children in never-fluoridated Kingston, New York, according to a New York State Department of Health study published in the New York State Dental Journal (10).

• Second-graders from non-fluoridated Long Island, New York, are more cavity-free than second graders nationally (11) where two thirds of Americans drink fluoridated public water supplies.

• Despite a tremendous effort to improve oral health in fluoridated Rochester and Monroe County, lack of dental care has created a tooth decay crisis.(12)

• In fluoridated Syracuse and Massena, many children are raised in homes where they feel it's their destiny to have tooth decay and tooth pain.(13)

• "Poor oral health was identified as the number one complaint in a population-based survey of Central Harlem conducted in 1992-1994." (14)

• In Harlem, N.Y., forty-six percent of African-American seniors were missing teeth, compared with twenty-two percent of Latinos. (15)

• "The state also has increased dental payment rates by 250 percent over the past few years, with little success in improving access to dental care." in fluoridated Syracuse, New York.(16)

• Cavities are rising in fluoridated Rochester’s 10-year-old population. (17)

• Eighteen percent of older New Yorkers lost six or more teeth due to dental disease, (18) while only sixteen percent of non-fluoridated Long islanders did. (19)

• Similarly twenty-one percent of Brooklyn’s and twenty percent of Queens’ residents have less teeth (20), than non-fluoridated Suffolk and Nassau Counties.

• Cavity crises occur in many fluoridated cities and states. (21)

By neglecting the poor, organized dentistry helped create an oral health epidemic (22). Promoting fluoridation may deflect government regulators from forcing dentists to actually treat poor children (23).

Besides, after six decades of water fluoridation, cavity rates have increased recently in America’s 2 to 4 year-old population who should be the most “fluoride-protected.” (23a)

And, according to the American Dental Association News, average net income of a full time independent non-solo pediatric dentist was $336,860 in 2001, up more than twenty-five percent since 1998. Since eighty percent of all decay occurs mostly in the dentist-abandoned poor, some public health dentists ask, what kinds of necessary dental services are provided to higher socio-economic kids to generate a net income of $336,860 annually?

In 1984, NYC spent $2.4 million for fluoridation chemicals, equipment and manpower, according to the NYC Department of Environmental Protection. In 2003, fluoride chemicals, alone, cost NYC $6 million, according to the New York Sun.

Fluoridation money, literally flushed down the toilet, should be earmarked to treat poor NYC children’s dental pain immediately.

Even more worrying is that higher blood lead levels are found in New York State (and other) children whose water supplies contain the fluoride chemicals, silicofluorides, when compared to non-fluoridated or sodium fluoridated communities, reports Masters and Coplan and substantiated by CDC scientists.(24) Ironically, higher blood lead levels are linked to more cavities. (25)

The cost of fluoridation isn’t the only price we pay when silicofluorides are put into drinking water. “Silicofluorides have very costly side-effects,” says Roger Masters, PhD, co-author of the silicofluoride/lead studies. “Lead lowers IQ and influences behavior in many ways. Epidemiology shows that where silicofluorides are used, there are higher rates of learning disabilities, substance abuse, and violent crime. Our studies do not find similar effects for sodium fluoride,” says Masters.

“The result is that silicofluoride usage has the effect of increasing public expenses and taxes,” says Masters. For example costs of jailing criminals, adversely affected by silicofluorides and special education classes for children with lower IQ due to high-blood-lead levels could be diminished if the offending silicofluorides were removed from public water supplies, Masters explains.

"The oral health crisis facing America today shows fluoridation and public health dentistry is failing America’s neediest children. Why is organized dentistry less supportive of a public health approach to improving access to care? Perhaps that’s because Americans spent roughly $64 billion on dental procedures last year with more than half of those procedures being cosmetic—fillings, crowns, implants, and high-end restorative procedures, according to government data," reported in Access, an American Dental Hygienists' Association publication.(26)

Organized dentistry often hinders programs designed to reach out to America's underserved, protecting their monopoly rather than America's neediiest. The ADA publicly invalidates dental hygienists solo practices along with their "Give-Kids-A-Smile" public relations materials. The hygienists lash back with their own news release (27) The ADA also frowns on dental therapists, specially trained hygienists who can fill the cavities dentists refuse to.(28)





References:

(1) September 2000 “Oral Health Factors Contributing to Low Use of Dental
Services by Low-Income Populations,” General Accounting Office
http://www.gao.gov/archive/2000/he00149.pdf

(1a) Colgate Oral Care Report Volume 14 No. 4, November 4, 2004 http://www.colgateprofessional.com/app/cop/repository/article-201/frameset.jsp

(1b) (1b) http://www.orgsites.com/ny/nyscof/_pgg6.php3


(2) "Early Childhood Caries-related Visits to Hospitals for Ambulatory Surgery in New York State," Wadhawan, Kumar, Badner, Green, Journal of Public Health Dentistry Vol 63 No.1, Winter 2003


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12597585

(3) “Dentists' pay tops doctors' Even with fewer cavities to fill, dentists' earnings are skyrocketing.” By Mark Maremont, The Wall Street Journal, January 11, 2005
http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/business/10614433.htm

(4) New York University, School of Dentistry, “Speaker Miller and City Council Expand Dental Services for Needy Children” http://www.nyu.edu/dental/news/needychildren.html

(5) “Lack of Oral Health Care for Adults in Harlem: A Hidden Crisis,” Zabos, et al, American Journal of Public Health, January 2002, Vol 92, No.l
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=11772760


(6) Journal of Public Health Dentistry, Summer; 63(3): 189-94
"Dental caries experience in northern Manhattan adolescents.".
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12962473



(7) Journal of Community Health, August 2003, " Oral disease burden and dental services utilization by Latino and African-American seniors in Northern Manhattan."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12856796


(8) Dental Clinics of North America, January 2003 "Dental caries prevalence among a sample of African American adults in New York City,"
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12519005&dopt=Abstract


(9) Pediatric Dentistry, May-June 2002, "Dental caries among disadvantaged 3- to 4-year-old children in northern Manhattan"

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12064497


(10) NYS Dental Journal,"Recommendations for Fluoride Use in children," February 1998 by dentists Kumar and Green. Figure 1, Page 41, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=9542393


(11) Page four of ERIE COUNTY HEALTH DEPARTMENT COMMUNITY HEALTH ASSESSMENT - FAMILY HEALTH
http://wings.buffalo.edu/wny/health/den.pdf

(12) Democrat and Chronicle, "Dental care is luxury for many locals," October 2004
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041002/NEWS01/410020317/1002/NEWS

(13) Small Smiles gives kids a reason to grin
Updated: 12/1/2004 by Al Nall, News 10 Now Web Staff
http://news10now.com/content/all_news/?ArID=32340&SecID=83

(14)
Abstract presented at meeting of American Public Health Association
“Community DentCare Network: Community-academic partnerships as a model in identifying, addressing, and reducing oral health disparities”

http://apha.confex.com/apha/132am/techprogram/paper_85424.htm

(15) U.S. News and World Reports 11/9/04
Open wide
A report looks at the dental health of African-American males,
By Elizabeth Querna

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/health/briefs/oral/hb041109b.htm?track=rss

(16) Cost Concerns Grow Despite New Health Plan Competition in Syracuse
Community Report No. 7
Summer 2003
http://www.hschange.org/CONTENT/572/

(17) University of Rochester News Release
Dental cavities on the rise again; back to 'drill and fill'
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2000-04/UoR-Dcot-0704100.php

(18) U.S. Centers for Disease Control statistics: http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/brfss/display.asp?cat=OH&yr=2002&qkey=6605&state=NY

(19) http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/brfss-smart/MMSARiskChart.asp?yr=2002&MMSA=83&cat=OH&qkey=6605&grp=0

(20) http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/brfss-smart/MMSACtyRiskChart.asp?MMSA=61&yr2=2002&qkey=6605&CtyCode=91&cat=OH#OH

(21) Cavity Crises in Fluoridated Cities and States compiled by New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation http://www.orgsites.com/ny/nyscof2/_pgg6.php3


(22) “FIRST-EVER SURGEON GENERAL'S REPORT ON ORAL HEALTH FINDS PROFOUND DISPARITIES IN NATION'S POPULATION,” News Release, May 2000, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/news/pressreleases/pr_oral_52000.htm

(23) Oregon Dental Association newsletter, April 2004, Volume 9, Number 11 (Page 6)
http://www.oregondental.org/oda/section.cfm?wSectionID=1277


(23a)
Data Presentation by Dr. Edward Sondik
Director, National Center for Health Statistics
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/about/otheract/hpdata2010/focusareas/fa21-oral.htm


(24) More Lead in Children Who Drink Fluoridated Water, by Sally Stride, June 2004
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/fluoridation/109036

(25) Moss, M.E. 1999. Association of dental caries and blood lead levels. Journal of the American Medical Association 281(June 23/30):2294.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=10386553&dopt=Abstract

(26) "Why Millions Suffer with preventable oral disease," by Bryan L. Scott, June 2002 . Access, an American Dental Hygienist Association’s publication
By Bryant L. Scott
http://www.adha.org/downloads/0506lead.pdf

27) ADHA’s Response to ADA Study: The Economic Impact of Unsupervised Dental Hygiene Practice and its Impact on Access to Care in the State of Colorado , February 4, 2005
http://www.adha.org/news/012805-study.htm

(28) "First Alaskan dental therapists to qualify," RDH
http://de.pennnet.com/Articles/Article_Display.cfm?ARTICLE_ID=219527&p=56

Fluoridation Harms Kidney Patient

Janet Lail learned to live for years with the constant pain she likens to brillo pads rubbed over scorched skin (ouch) and monthly hospitalizations due to a kidney disease (chronic pyelonephritis) that requires she drink loads of water.

Then suddenly the pain disappeared and her hospital visits became fewer and farther between. Even the doctors were confounded-–nothing had changed – except the water-–it was no longer fluoridated.

Lail’s water provider, the South Blount Utility District in Tennessee opened a new plant in June 2004 and started providing unfluoridated water.
Lail told this story to Lesli Bales-Sherrod, a reporter for the Daily Times of Maryville, Tennessee (1)

“`I thought it was a fluke or something,’ (Lail) acknowledged. ‘When you’ve been sick like that for so many years, you don’t want to analyze why (your’re doing better). I didn’t want to talk about it; I was afraid it might go away,’” Bales-Sherrod writes.

Lail is willing to show her medical records to the skeptical. But she probably doesn’t know that the literature is littered with warnings that people with pyelonephritis should avoid fluoride.

But, for some reason, otherwise sensible people trust dentists’ opinions on fluoride’s bodily effects-–as if looking into mouths all day can detect kidney problems.

So legislators follow dentists’ advice and put fluoride into their constituents’ water supplies. Media knight dentists as fluoride experts and write positive fluoride stories, not at all shy to belittle their readers opposed to fluoridation-–a script handed to them by the fluoridationists.


Dentists assure anyone who will listen that, when added to drinking water, fluoride, like a miracle drug, prevents tooth decay with absolutely no harmful effects, except maybe some discolored teeth.

Dentists need to get acquainted with Lail and the scientific literature. It’s well known that fluoride harms kidneys and/or people whose kidneys don’t excrete fluoride properly.

“Kidney patients retain as much as 60% more fluoride than do persons in normal health,” writes physician George Waldbott, the leading medical expert on the clinical aspects of chronic fluoride toxicity when he wrote “Fluoridation the Great Dilemma,” published in 1978 with Harvard educated Albert Burgshthler, Phd, university professor and now Editor of the journal, “Fluoride.”

Waldbott describes two of his patients harmed by fluoridated water.

Twenty-seven year old G.L.’s kidney disease was so bad, she was slated to have her left kidney removed. Additionally, she suffered from pain and numbness in her arms and legs, spastic bowels, mouth ulcers, and headaches.

After, following Waldbott’s advice to avoid the fluoridated water, not only did the above symptoms disappear, but her left kidney began to function again. A five year follow-up found her still healthy.

E. P., 39 years old, had advanced pyelitis (another name for pyelonephritis, Janet Lail’s disease) of the left kidney, bone changes and the same clinical picture as G.L.

E.P.’s diseased kidney and other symptoms improved markedly within six weeks after she stopped drinking her artificially fluoridated water supply.

“One of the most striking features in the early stage of fluorosis is the craving for fluids, accompanied by excess production of urine. Indeed, the more water the patient drinks the thirstier he or she becomes,” writes Waldbott.

Dentists rely on outdated and questionable data to absolve fluoride in kidney problems. For instance Hodge and Smith wrote that “no soft tissue stores fluoride.” We now know that Hodge’s main concern in the 1940’s was to downplay fluoride’s bad effects to protect the super-secret Manhattan Project, which produced the first atomic bomb that ended World War II.

Hodge knew that fluoride emissions from Manhattan Project contracters were killing and maiming nearby farm crops and animals. (See “The Fluoride Deception” by Christopher Bryson). But stopping the fluoride emissions could kill the project. So instead they downplayed or ignored fluoride’s ill effects.

In 1991 the U.S. government admitted fluoride’s harm. “...subsets of the population may be unusually susceptible to the toxic effects of fluoride and its compounds. These populations include the elderly, people with magnesium deficiency, and people with cardiovascular and kidney problems,” is reported in, the “Toxicological Profile for Fluorides, Hydrogen Fluoride, and Fluorine,” by the U.S. Department of Health (1991).

It was even known in 1965 that fluoride adversely affects people with Lail’s disease.

"A patient with renal disease (probably chronic pyelonephritis) has been reported whose bone contained fluorine in a concentration exceeding 5,000 ppm. There was no history of exposures to fluorides, and her usual drinking water contained less than 0.5 ppm of fluorine. This is of interest because in a postmortem study in Utah the highest concentrations of fluorine were found in those with chronic pyelonephritis… Sauerbrunn and associates have reported in this issue of the ANNALS the development of skeletal fluorosis in a patient with chronic polydipsia [excessive thirst]; the fluorine content of his drinking water was high but it was not at a level generally associated with the production of skeletal disorder. It seems probable that in this patient and in those with chronic pyelonephritis the high concentrations of fluorine found in the bone are the result of a greater consumption of water, which leads to a greater intake of fluorine,” excerpted from the Annals of Internal Medicine 1963 (1)

Two kidney patients, one with pyelonephritis, were unable to excrete fluoride properly which caused bone damaging skeletal fluorosis, researchers reported in 1972 (2).


In persons with advanced bilateral pyelonephritis, the skeletal fluoride content can be 4-fold that of similarly-exposed persons with normal kidneys, reported Marier in 1977 (2a),

Fluoride interferes with calcium to negatively affect kidneys, a 1999 study shows (3)

"As renal function declines, due either to diseases or with aging, plasma and bone fluoride content both increase," according to the Surgeon General’s 1983 committee notes, reports Chemical & Engineering News (4).

The National Kidney Foundation in its "Position Paper on Fluoridation-1980" also expresses concern about fluoride retention in kidney patients. It cautions doctors "to monitor the fluoride intake of patients with chronic renal impairment, but stops short of recommending the use of fluoride-free drinking water for all patients with kidney disease. It does recommend, however, that dialysis patients use fluoride-free water for their treatments. (4)

Studies show that children with moderately impaired renal function (such as those who have diabetes insipidus), are at some risk of skeletal changes from consumption of fluoridated water, even if the fluoride level is no higher than 1 ppm. A number of researchers have found high concentrations of fluoride in the bones of patients who suffer from kidney disease and have found symptoms of skeletal fluorosis in some of these patients. However, there has been no systematic survey of people with impaired kidney function to determine how many actually suffer a degree of skeletal fluorosis that is clearly detrimental to their health.(4)

Fluoridationists may argue that only approximatrely 1 ppm is injected into water supplies. But did dentists calculate how much hydrogen fluoride South Blount customers breathe in from nearby Alcoa aluminum smokestack air emissions? Did they measure how much fluoride is ingested from dental products, foods and beverages other than water?

I doubt it, they seldom do.


The evidence is in. After 60 years of water fluoridation delivered to 2/3 of Americans via the water supply and 100% of Americans via their food and beverage supply, American children are grossly overfluoridated Yet, tooth decay is a national epidemic.

According to the National Kidney Foundation, more than 20 million Americans - one in nine adults - have chronic kidney disease.

The Pot Calls the Kettle Black

Trust me, dentists say, not those anti-fluoridationists with flawed scientific interpretation, fully aware that tagging us as "anti's" is pejorative in itself.

However, U.S. National Institutes of Health scientists were unable to find any valid science to support fluoride's use in preventing tooth decay.(6) and were "disappointed in the overall quality of the clinical data that it reviewed. According to the panel, far too many studies were small, poorly described, or otherwise methodologically flawed" (over 560 studies evaluated fluoride use), according to a news release issued by the Consensus Development Conference on the Diagnosis and Management of Dental Caries Throughout Life, convened by the National Institutes of Health on March 26-28, 2001 in Bethesda, MD.

British scientists have the same problem

"We were unable to discover any reliable good-quality evidence in the fluoridation literature world-wide...An association with water fluoride and other adverse effects ...was not found. However, we felt that not enough was known because the quality of the evidence was poor," according to a news release issued by Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (CRD), University of York, England. (7) In 1999, the UK Department of Health commissioned CRD to conduct a systematic review into the efficacy and safety of the fluoridation of drinking water.


More studies about fluoride’s ill effect on kidney are here http://www.slweb.org/bibliography.html#kidney

Fluoride toxicity symptoms are listed here: http://www.orgsites.com/ny/nyscof/_pgg1.php3

References:

(1) http://www.slweb.org/adams-jowsey.html

(2) http://www.slweb.org/juncos-1972


(2a) http://www.fluorideaction.org/nrc-fluoride.htm#5.8

(3) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Retrieve&list_uids=10356089&dopt=Abstract

(4) http://www.fluoridealert.org/s-fluorosis.htm

(5) http://www.thedailytimes.com/sited/story/html/203214

(6) http://consensus.nih.gov/news/releases/115_release.htm

(7)http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/crd/fluoridnew.htm

How Dentists Manipulate Legislators to Win Fluoridation Battles

Ignoring the democratic process and discouraging a healthy dialogue, California fluoridationists worked secretly, quickly and dishonestly to pass a 1995 California fluoridation law, that forces most California communities to add fluoride into their water supplies, whether Californians want it or not, according to “The Fluoride Victory,” published in the Journal of the California Dental Association.(1)

California Assemblywoman Jackie Speier, working with the California Dental Association (CDA), sponsored a fluoridation bill, eventually signed into law, forcing all California water companies, with 10,000 service connections, to add nonessential fluoride chemicals into the drinking water to prevent tooth decay, without constituent or local governing body approval, discussion or vote.

“To make the most of the element of surprise, it was decided that Speier would wait until the last possible moment to introduce her fluoridation bill,” writes author Joanne Boyd.

“’We pretty much knew we’d catch (the anti-fluoridation faction) by surprise because it wasn’t well known outside of the dental community what was going on,' said Liz Snow, assistant director of CDA’s Government Relations (lobbying) Office. ‘But we didn’t want to give the other side any more time to mobilize than absolutely necessary,’” writes Boyd.

William Keese, CDA Director of Government Relations, a lobbyist, received many compliments from other lobbyists on the campaign.

“I wouldn’t say we pulled a rabbit out of a hat, but it was a coup. We worked hard at getting prepared and using the element of surprise to our advantage. We moved fast and did it in one year," Boyd quotes Keese as saying.

Many of the nation’s most familiar pro-fluoride lobbiests, were involved in the California battle including zealous fluoridationist, dentist Michael Easley brought in from Kentucky, at the time. (By the way, tooth decay doubled in Kentucky after water fluoridation (2)).

To the antifluoridation folks, Easley brags, I'm Public Enemy Number 1. (3) Easley travels world-wide touting one issue, fluoridation. Easley used taxpayer money to create a biased, document about fluoridation containing factual errors.(12)

Intending to insult anti-fluoridationists, Boyd quotes lobbiest Snow as saying, “’When you’re a single-issue person – when that issue pops up, regardless of where it is – that’s where you go,’ Snow said. They remind me of Deadheads. Anywhere the Grateful Dead would go, there would be the same group of followers.” Snow’s criticism more aptly fits Easley or the national lobbiests provided by the country-wide dentists’ union, the American Dental Association (ADA), which could be named the American Fluoridation Association.

Unlike pro-fluoridation special-interest groups, fluoridation opponents use their own time, their own money, usually to protect their own drinking water and have actually studied the issue. There are different opponents in every town.

On the other hand, the ADA, went all out to support the 1995 California fluoridation bill, assisting in spokesperson training, legislative testimony and providing literature to distribute, reports Boyd.

With decades of commercials, advertisements and organized dentistry’s web of support, influence and money working against them, and during the OJ trial, Californians opposed to fluoridation hardly had a chance to voice dissent.

The California campaign is a "blueprint" for oranized dentistry to push fluoridation across the USA. This despite evidence fluoridation fails to reduce tooth decay by the same dentists who told the California legislature the opposite.

In fact, out-of-town pro-fluoride troops are on the ground, thirty strong armed with grant money, in Joplin Missouri, right now, spreading the gospel according to Organized Dentistry(13)forcing the good people of Joplin to organize, raise money and fight their own representatives to keep their water fluoride-free (13a).

Kansas City, MO, is already fluorided, yet 31% of small children have severe tooth decay (15). A Springfield newspaper reports similar dire decay problems, not from lack of fluoride, the water is fluoridated (16); but from lack of dental care.

Fluoridation fails Missouri children, already 82% fluoridated (See: Black Holes Swallow Community
http://springfield.news-leader.com/opinions/today/0718-Blackholes-135710.html).

Back to California.

Untrained to diagnose fluoride’s adverse effects, California fluoridationist and dentist “Howard Pollick, …, likened the anti-fluoride activists to the Flat Earth Society. ‘Ever since science proved that the earth is round, there’s been a Flat Earth Society whose members refuse to acknowledge a scientific truth,”’ Writes Boyd in “The Fluoride Victory.”

Pollick should join the Flat Earth Society – in fact – he should be their President because he doesn’t even believe his own research.

According to Pollick and colleagues, "It may...be that fluoridation of drinking water does not have a strong protective effect against early childhood caries (ECC)," was reported in the Winter 2003 Journal of Public Health Dentistry(4).

Howard Pollick, DDS, is a clinical professor with the University of California San Francisco School of Dentistry, Department of Preventive and Restorative Dental Sciences, and co-chairman of the California Fluoridation Task Force.

Pollick's team studied 2,520 California preschool children as part of the “California Oral Health Needs Assessment of Children Study” which helped convinced California legislators to mandate fluoridation statewide in 1995(5).

A majority of Asian-American children that Pollick and his research team studied, lived in areas with fluoridated water; yet they suffered with the highest prevalence and the greatest amount of cavities.

"...the primary sampling units were selected on the basis of fluoridation status: three were fluoridated urban regions, two were rural (nonfluoridated),and five were non-fluoridated urban regions," they report. "Our analysis did not appear to be affected by whether or not children lived in an area with fluoridated water," reports Pollick et al.

Pollick reports in the "International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health" that infant forumula made with optimally fluoridated water might create brown and pitted permanent teeth(17). We wonder if Pollick, turned fluoridation lobbiest in Arkansas, informs elected bodies that, if they fluoridate their water supplies, they must provide bottled fluoride-free water for infant consumption.

Many studies show children's teeth will grow in stained if fed formula reconstituted with fluoridated water.(18)

On 9/2/04 Pollick presented selective pro-fluoridation information to two committees of the Arkansas legislature, instigating a state-wide fluoridation law, telling legislators to disbelieve anti-fluoridationists because they use the internet. Unfortunately, for Pollick, we use his own words to contradict what he tells legislators in private. I guess that's why he doesn't recommend the internet.

Organized dentistry gets an A+ for political savvy; but an F for fluoride science. Legislators assume organized dentistry does their fluoride homework; but they don't. Fluoridating dentists are like wind-up dolls programmed to say one thing. Even if they wanted to, they can't say anything negative about fluoride or their owners would put them out of busines.

Fluoride opposition is based on sound science – not back-door political activism. Unfortunately, we don’t have the money, influence and network they do. We only have the truth.

People who get paid to promote fluoridation:

-- Dental directors in almost every state with offices, budgets, staffs and traveling expenses, most of whom aren’t passionate about fluoridation – just doing their job.

-- An army of uniformed U.S. Centers for Disease Control dentists, based in Atlanta, Georgia, who took up the front row, at taxpayer expense, in a Suffolk County, New York, legislative fluoridation meeting. The Suffolk County legislature still voted down fluoridation.

-- National Institutes of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) dentists. The NIDCR displays a magnified image of a fluoride crystal on their website’s logo as a reminder that this institute was born on the back of fluoridation. Millions of dollars are meted out to dental researchers to study fluoride’s tooth effects – but not fluoride’s bodily effects.

-- Public-health-dentists and dental professors in Universities and dental schools who sometimes require entire classes of dental students take up space and alloted time before governing bodies in local fluoridation battles to essentially silence residents opposed to fluoridation.

-- The U.S. Surgeon General who reports a dental health epidemic in the U.S. despite almost five decades of water fluoridation reaching about 2/3 of Americans and vitually 100% through the food and beverage supply.

At their disposal is a web of dentists across the U.S. too willing to follow Organized Dentistry’s instructions to lobby their legislator-patients and instigate fluoridation whenever they can, making it appear to be a local initiative. They are offered strategy materials, videos, power point presentations and a half day continuing education program entitled “Get the Drop on Community Water Fluoridation!”

Don’t expect the research community to speak on your behalf. Some who did lost their jobs, grant money and reputations such as Phyllis Mullenix, PhD, once a rising star in the research community until she discovered fluoride could pass into the brain causing mental deficits.

Instead of ordering up more studies to prove or disprove her findings, organized dentistry destroyed the messenger and ignored her findings(9) which have never been successfully refuted scientifically. However, research from China bolsters her findings.

Dr. William Marcus exposed the government’s downgrading of bone cancer in lab animals exposed to fluoride in a study by the National Toxicology Program (9a). Marcus was fired, then re-hired under the whistleblowers act with back pay; but the scientific research showing fluoride induces bone cancer in rats has never been corrected.(10)

Canadian researchers aren’t encouraged to speak out either when they disagree (11).

Timid, fearful or greedy dental researchers usually conclude "more study needed" when they unexpectedly find negative fluoride data.

The fluoridators still strategically avoid debates because they know their information doesn’t stand up to objective scrutiny.

Organized dentistry’s tactic now is to work behind the scenes forming “dental health committees” presenting one-sided, sometimes wrong, information, to local children’s, health and church groups, and the media, convincing them that fluoridation is safe, effective and cheap while insulting and denigrating those opposed or as Easley call us, “fluorophobes.” They effectively indoctrinate trusting people to love them and hate us. They are masters of manipulation.

Susan Allen, Florida's Fluoridation Coordinator wrote in a 1990 memo to St. Petersburg's Director of Inner City Governmental Relations, "There are several tactical strategies that seem to promote (fluoridation) success; the 1st being - Keep a low profile: the least amount of publicity the better.

2. Approach community officials individually. Better yet, convince someone they know and respect to convince them ...'

4. Avoid a referendum. The statistics are that 3 out of 4 fluoridation referenda fail."

It’s incredible that fluoridation opponents win any fluoridation battles against this huge fluoridating machine. But we do (8) because the evidence speaks for itself. We just present it.

Despite fluoridation since 1954, 2/3 of elementary schoolchildren and about 1/3 of San Francisco preschoolers, had cavities, according to a 1996/97 survey that also reveals cavity prevalence in fluoridated San Francisco is similar to the rest of California, mostly non-fluoridated at the time of the survey. (6)

Yet San Francisco reportedly will spend $2,500,000 on a new or updated fluoridation facility
(7). At the same time San Francisco sells non-fluoridated bottled water and brags that their Mayor and Water Department employees drink the bottled water - fluoride-free.

http://sfwater.org/detail.cfm/MSC_ID/72/MTO_ID/106/MC_ID/5/C_ID/1400/holdSession/1

And that’s politics!

References:

(1) “The Fluoride Victory,” by Joanne Boyd, January 1997 cover story in the Journal of the California Dental Association, Vol 25, No. 1

(2) http://www.enn.com/direct/display-release.asp?objid=D1D1366D000000F8F97F0DE9FB13C05C

(3) http://www.sdm.buffalo.edu/news/19990215_fluoride.html

(4) "The Association of Early Childhood Caries and Race/Ethnicity among California Preschool Children, by Shiboski, Gansky, Ramos-Gomez, Ngo, Isman, Pollick, Journal of Public Health Dentistry, Winter 2003, pages 38-46 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12597584

(5)http://www.nofluoride.com/needs_assessment.htm

(6) http://www.dph.sf.ca.us/Reports/98ChildHealth/oralhe~1.pdf

(7) http://sfwater.org/detail.cfm/MC_ID/5/MSC_ID/19/MTO_ID/57/C_ID/1652/

(8) http://www.fluoridealert.org/communities.htm

(9) Excerpt from “The Fluoride Deception,” by Christopher Bryson about Phyllis Mullenix (scroll down)

http://www.sevenstories.com/closeup/index.cfm?page=excerpt/Fluoride_Excerpt.html

(9a) http://www.fluoridealert.org/marcus.htm

(10) http://www.fluoridealert.org/marcus3.htm

(11) http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1089843028895&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154&tacodalogin=no

(12)

www.dhs.ca.gov/ps/cdic/cdcb/Medicine/ OralHealth/Fluoride/documents/calprojt.doc

(13) http://www.joplinglobe.com/story.php?story_id=123796

(13a) http://www.joplinindependent.com/display_article.php/mariwinn1093734138

(14) http://springfield.news-leader.com/opinions/today/0718-Blackholes-135710.html

(15) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15022522

(16) http://springfield.news-leader.com/opinions/today/0705-Dentalcare-125845.html

(17)"Water Fluoridation and the Environment: Current Perspective in the United States," Howard F. Pollick, BDS, MPH, Internationa Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, Jun/Sep, 2004.
http://www.ijoeh.com/pfds/1003_Pollick.pdf

(18) http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/11749/108203

Fluoridation profoundly fails short of promises

Severe tooth decay is responsible for 2/3 of hospital visits by children under six in New York State (1), where almost 70% of the population drinks fluoridated water which is supposed to stop that sort of thing. Evidence shows we are on the wrong track in defeating early childhood cavities.

New York City spends anywhere between $6 and $14 million annually on water fluoridation. Yet more New York City children required cavity-related hospitalizations, proportionately, than two of New York State’s largest non-fluoridated counties, Suffolk and Nassau, whether payment was made by Medicaid or privately.

In New York City, where fluoride is added to water supplies to prevent tooth decay, one hospital charged from $929 to $12,199 to treat 96 children with severely decayed teeth, excluding the dentist and anesthesiologist fees. Children needed extensive work including stainless steel crowns, extractions, root canal therapy, fillings, other restorations, periodontal procedures, surgeries and/or more.

New York State hospital charges for the 2,726 early childhood cavities-related surgical visits required by children under six, in 1999, lie anywhere between $2.5 and $33 million, report NYS Department of Health Dentists, Kumar and Green, and others, in the Winter 2003 Journal of Public Health Dentistry, who also report they may be underestimating the numbers of children so treated.

National Medicaid costs for hospital treatment of early childhood cavities are between $100 to $200 million annually.

Even after hospital treatment, these children return with new lesions, say Kumar and colleagues.

Besides fluoridation, the New York State government provides dental screenings, dental sealants, early childhood cavity prevention, fluoride mouthrinse and fluoride supplement programs. (5)

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control predicts that “Every dollar spent on community water fluoridation saves from $7 to $42 in treatment costs.” (2) The American Dental Association says fluoridation will prevent early childhood cavities. But that doesn’t seem to be happening in New York City.

Dentists continue to tout fluoride, brushing, visits to see them and less sugary drinks as the antidote to tooth decay, but neglect nutrients essential to create teeth that won’t fall apart in childhood.

Early childhood cavities, once called baby-bottle tooth decay, is still blamed on inappropriate feeding practices (non-nutritive sucking, prolong bottle/breast feeding, nap-time feeding). But the majority of children put to sleep with bottle or breast do not develop cavities. The association of early childhood cavities with low-socioeconomic status is stronger and more consistent. And low-socioeconmic groups are more apt to be ill-fed and/or malnourished.

Teeth begin formation in utero. “Prenatal deficiencies of calcium and vitamin D can lead to enamel defects, and enamel defects in turn predispose teeth to caries,” report Smith and Moffatt in their article, “Baby-bottle tooth decay: are we on the right track?” (3)

“Baby-bottle tooth decay (BBTD) is especially prevalent in Aboriginal people, for whom studies have consistently reported diets deficient in vitamin D and calcium. BBTD may be a consequence of the poor socioeconomic conditions and malnutrition. Perhaps more attention should be given to primary prevention,” report Smith and Moffatt.

While few dispute sugary drinks are bad for teeth, federal surveys identify low calcium intake as a public health concern; 53% of 2-5 year-olds consume inadequate calcium.

Calcium is essential for strong teeth. Ingested fluoride is not essential to prevent cavities and has no nutritional need, write Warren and Levy in Dental Clinics of North America, April 2003.

Recently, a staunch fluoridation promoter, dentist Howard Pollick, had to admit: “It may...be that fluoridation of drinking water does not have a strong protective effect against early childhood caries (ECC),” in the Winter 2003 Journal of Public Health Dentistry.

Another fluoridation supporter, Columbia University's Burton L. Edelstein DDS, wrote: “...children with extreme (dental) disease often overwhelm the expected benefits (of fluoridation) and continue to develop new cavities despite fluoridated water availability." Edelstein reports that (88.8% fluoridated) Connecticut's poor, pre-school children's cavities increased despite water fluoridation.

Basil, the only Swiss city fluoridating water supplies, recently stopped because no evidence indicated fluoridation reduced decay. In fact, Basil children’s cavities increased despite decades of water fluoridation. And several studies show cavities decreased when fluoridation terminated.(4)

Acids and bacteria pull calcium and other essential minerals from teeth, constantly, but are replaced almost as fast by the same components in saliva. When outgo exceeds input, it’s a cavity.

Dentists might be the heroes they think they are today if they lobbied for calcium in water supplies, rather than fluoride.

“...fluorides are most effective in preventing decay on the smooth surfaces of teeth.” according to the 1984 Director of the National Institute of Health, Dr. Harold Loe. But early childhood cavities usually occur on the smooth surfaces and the incidence is growing. And fluoridation isn’t stopping it.

If governments want to spend money preventing children’s tooth decay, tax-dollars would be better spent feeding children required nutrients, not fluoride. Their teeth as well as their bodies would be stronger with less of a strain on the health care system.

Most poor children, turned away by most dentists who refuse Medicaid patients, must wait until their decay spreads and abscesses before they can get treatment at a hospital’s emergency room. Preventing one cavity over a lifetime through water fluoridation may save $42, but not filling another cavity may cost $12,199 to the taxpayers.

Dentists who graduate owing upwards to $100,000, and sometimes more, in student loans, didn’t get into the business to do charity work. They should be paid the same amount they get from private insurers. Government would save money in the long run; and children wouldn’t have to live in pain. And every American wouldn’t have to drink water that has unnecessary, harmful fluoride chemicals added.

References:

(1) “Early Childhood Caries-related Visits to Hospitals for Ambulatory Surgery in New York State,” Wadhawan, Kumar, Badner, Green, Journal of Public Health Dentistry Vol 63 No.1, Winter 2003

(2) http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/pe_factsheets/pe_oh.htm (Accessed June 1, 2003)

(3) “Baby-bottle tooth decay: are we on the right track?” by Smith PJ, Moffatt ME, International Journal of circumpolar Health 1998; 57 Suppl 1:155-62.

(4) http://www.orgsites.com/ny/nyscof/_pgg6.php3

(5) http://www2.cdc.gov/nohss/bystate.asp?stateid=36

CDC Fluoridation Recommendations Part 1

On August 17, 2001, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control released new fluoride recommendations. See http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5014a1.htm

This is a fictional conversation between the dentists who wrote the new report (CDC) and an average American (ME). All quotes are from the CDC report exactly as written.

CDC: “In the earliest days of fluoride research, investigators hypothesized that fluoride affects enamel and inhibits dental caries (cavities) only when incorporated into developing dental enamel...”

ME: Hey, we all make mistakes doc.

CDC: “Fluoride works primarily after teeth have erupted…”

ME: Oh, I see. But what does swallowed fluoride do?

CDC: “Fluoride ingested during tooth development can also result in a range of visually detectable changes in enamel opacity... because of hypomineralization.”

ME: What happens?

CDC: “...chalklike, lacy markings across a tooth's enamel surface... In the moderate form, >50% of the enamel surface is opaque white. The rare, severe form manifests as pitted and brittle enamel. After eruption, teeth with moderate or severe fluorosis might develop areas of brown stain. In the severe form, the compromised enamel might break away, resulting in excessive wear of the teeth.

ME: So how does fluoride reduce tooth decay?

CDC: “Fluoride concentrated in plaque and saliva inhibits the demineralization of sound enamel and enhances the remineralization”

ME: But doc, you make me brush off the plaque twice a day. Then your torturer hygienist digs out what I missed twice a year.

CDC: “...fluoride is released from dental plaque in response to lowered pH at the tooth-plaque interface.”

ME: Hello, are you listening? In fact, you or your hygienist brush my off my plaque during my semi-annual cleanings with that gritty fluoride paste.

CDC: “Fluoride-containing paste is routinely used during dental prophylaxis (i.e., cleaning). The abrasive paste, which contains 4,000--20,000 ppm fluoride, might restore the concentration of fluoride in the surface layer of enamel removed by polishing...”

ME: Oh.

CDC: “Fluoride paste is not accepted by FDA or ADA as an efficacious way to prevent dental caries.”

ME: Now you are scaring me, doc. Well, what about the fluoridated toothpaste I use every day?

CDC: “Few studies evaluating the effectiveness of fluoride toothpaste, gel, rinse, and varnish among adult populations are available.”

ME: Man, oh, man!

CDC: “Saliva is a major carrier of topical fluoride”

ME: Oh, I see

CDC: “The concentration of fluoride in ductal saliva, as it is secreted from salivary glands, is low --- approximately 0.016 parts per million (ppm) in areas where drinking water is fluoridated and 0.006 ppm in nonfluoridated areas.

ME: So the fluoride in saliva is killing Mr. germs!

CDC: “This concentration of fluoride is not likely to affect cariogenic activity”

ME: Hey Abbot. Who’s on first.

CDC: “In laboratory studies, when a low concentration of fluoride is constantly present, one type of cariogenic bacteria, Streptococcus mutans, produces less acid”

ME: Oh, so fluoride kills the Streptococcus mutans that causes tooth decay?

CDC: “Whether this reduced acid production reduces the cariogenicity of these bacteria in humans is unclear”

ME: Is this report supposed to be a comedy?

ME: OK, so fluoride doesn’t incorporate into developing teeth to prevent tooth decay; but does concentrate in the plaque on the outside of my teeth but I brush it off. Fluoride’s in my saliva but at doses not high enough to reduce tooth decay. So fluoride must get into my teeth somehow to prevent cavities.

CDC: “The prevalence of dental caries in a population is not inversely related to the concentration of fluoride in enamel, and a higher concentration of enamel fluoride is not necessarily more efficacious in preventing dental caries.”

ME: Oy! So what’s good about fluoridation?

CDC: "Today, all U.S. residents are exposed to fluoride to some degree, and widespread use of fluoride has been a major factor in the decline in the prevalence and severity of dental caries in the United States and other economically developed countries.”

ME: What’s your reference for that?

CDC: “Reference 1) Bratthall D, Hänsel Petersson G, Sundberg H. Reasons for the caries decline: what do the experts believe? Eur J Oral Sci 1996;104:416--22.”

ME: BELIEVE? But doc remember what happened when you believed ingested fluoride incorporated into developing enamel to reduce tooth decay.? Can’t you do any better. What happened to those early studies with natural fluoride that gave birth to fluoridation?

CDC: “... the limitations of these studies make summarizing the quality of evidence on community water fluoridation as Grade I inappropriate.”

ME: So they just don’t make the grade, huh. That’s a shame. Well, you’ve been adding un-natural fluoride to water supplies for over 50 years. You said you had mounds of studies proving its safety and efficacy. What about those?

CDC: “The quality of evidence from studies on the effectiveness of adjusting fluoride concentration in community water to optimal levels is Grade II-1.”

ME: They don’t make top grade either. Bummer! This is upsetting you. Let’s change the subject. So you want bottled water labels to show fluoride content?

CDC: “Producers of bottled water should label the fluoride concentration of their products.”

ME: This sounds reasonable.

CDC: “In the United States, water and processed beverages (e.g., soft drinks and fruit juices) can provide approximately 75% of a person's fluoride intake.”

ME: Are you asking for the fluoride content labeled on soda and fruit juices?

CDC: (silent on this issue)

ME: What’s so bad about fluoride that it has to be listed on the labels.

CDC: “Fluoride ingested during tooth development can also result in a range of visually detectable changes in enamel opacity… These changes have been broadly termed enamel fluorosis, certain extremes of which are cosmetically objectionable… Severe forms of this condition can occur only when young children ingest excess fluoride, from any source, during critical periods of tooth development.…Concerns regarding the risk for enamel fluorosis are limited to children aged <8>

ME: So how much is too much?

CDC: “Intake that maximally reduces occurrence of dental caries without causing unwanted side effects, including moderate enamel fluorosis.”

ME: I would prefer you tell me the amount that would guarantee against any fluorosis, even mild, but give me what you have.

CDC: From Table 2 - Adequate intake of fluoride for:

· a baby 0-6 months old or 16 pounds is 0.01 milligrams day (mg/day)
· a child 6-12 months or 20 pounds is 0.5 mg/day
· a child 1-3 years or 29 pounds is 0.7
· a child 4-8 years or 48 pounds is 1.1 mg/day

ME: So babies are safe if they drink these amounts even though most of them don’t have teeth to get any topical benefits

CDC: “In a survey of four U.S. cities with different fluoride concentrations in the drinking water (range: 0.37--1.04 ppm), ... infants aged 6 months ingested 0.21--0.54 mg fluoride per day”

ME: Oh my goodness. That’s too high. They may get fluorosis. What should we do?

...Continued in Part II  http://fluoridedangers.blogspot.com/2006/04/cdc-recommendations-part-2.html

Fluoride Causes Cavities

Like most drugs, fluoride causes what it purports to cure. And fluoride can't protect teeth from a bad diet.

Dentists tell us that drinking “optimal” levels of fluoridated water - 1 part per million or 1 milligram fluoride per liter (quart) - each day, reduces tooth decay without serious side effects. But this dental dogma has never been proven scientifically. However, research shows, above optimal fluoride levels causes tooth decay; and most Americans get more fluoride then they need.

The severe outward sign of fluoride overdose is dental fluorosis - yellow, brown or black stained teeth. Cavities increase in people with severe fluorosis according to a dentistry textbook entitled, “Dentistry, Dental Practice and the Community,” by Burt and Eklund.

This phenomenon has been demonstrated in the United States from National Institute of Dentistry and Craniofacial Research studies in seven communities in northern Illinois. The results of the dental decay examinations, related to fluoride concentrations in drinking water, form a J-shaped curve. With increasing fluoride levels, cavity experience diminishes to a certain point and then starts to rise again, the authors report.

These data suggest that the true relationship between water fluoride levels and dental decay is the J-shaped curve, with the turning point in the J being something between 3 and 4 times the optimal level, they write.

The problem is that children already receive above optimum doses of fluoride even without drinking fluoridated water, studies show. By 1974 samples of duplicate meals indicated more than ten times as much fluoride as had been found thirty years earlier – and this study didn't factor in fluoride content of snack foods.

Maybe excess fluoride is why tooth decay is still a major U.S. dilemma. Even though U.S. children are fluoride saturated from water, air, foods, beverages and dental products, the surgeon general reports that tooth decay is still a major problem and an epidemic in our poor and minority populations.

Yet, children from the African country of Uganda have less tooth decay than American children even though most Ugandan children don’t use fluoride toothpaste or even a toothbrush to clean their teeth. In fact, Ugandan children who drink high fluoride water have more tooth decay than their equals in low fluoride districts, according to “Clinical Oral Investigations."

“No teeth were lost due to caries (cavities) in the low fluoride district but 6 of 135 (4%) in the high-fluoride district,” report authors Rwenyonyi, et al. Ugandan children, aged 10 to 14, with similar socioeconomic backgrounds and diets, who lived their entire lives in either low fluoride (0.5 mg fluoride per liter) or high fluoride water districts (2.5 mg fluoride per liter), were examined for tooth decay by the same dentist, with results verified. “Surprisingly, there was a significantly higher caries prevalence and DMFT (decayed, missing, filled teeth) score in the high-fluoride district than in the low-fluoride district,” the authors write.

“In one low fluoride area..., all children were caries-free compared to 75% to 86% in the other areas,” they report.

A different paper, presented at a June 2001 meeting of the International Association of Dental Research by Louw, et al, shows the same unexpected results with a different African population. Children drinking 3.0 mg/L water fluoride have more cavities than children drinking .19 and .48 mg/L fluoride. In contrast, only 65% of fluoride-saturated American 10-year-olds are cavity-free and a, mere, 35% of 14-year-olds are cavity-free.

Americans drink fluoridated water, use fluoridated toothpaste, eat foods and beverages made with fluoridated water, along with fluoride pesticide residues. Fluoride supplements, mouthrinses, treatments, varnishes, and other fluoridated dental products are used profusely in the U.S. And fluoride is a major industrial air pollutant.

The big difference between American and Ugandan children is diet. The basic Ugandan diet is composed of complex carbohydrates, e.g., cooking banana, cassava, potatoes, maize and sorghum eaten at regular meals. About 80% of the children reported no between-meal intake of sugar containing items.

According to “Fast Food Nation,” by Eric Schlosser, Americans drink soda at an annual rate of about fifty-six gallons per person - that’s nearly six hundred twelve-ounce cans of soda per person. And, since sales of soda is subsidizing education in many U.S. school districts, children are encouraged to drink more, rather than less, soda while in school. This leaves less room and desire for milk in schoolchildren's diets.

Schlosser reports that twenty years ago, American teenage boys drank twice as much milk as soda, now they drink twice as much soda as milk. And soft drink consumption is common among American toddlers.

Milk contains calcium and magnesium, essential nutrients required to form healthy teeth. Soda depletes the body’s calcium stores. Fluoride is neither a nutrient nor essential. Fluorosed teeth contain more fluoride and less calcium than normal teeth, according to A. K. Susheela, Ph.D., Director, Fluorosis Research and Rural Development Foundation, in “A Treatise on Fluorosis.”

One would think dentists would be campaigning to have calcium placed in the drinking water but then they might lose the financial support they enjoy from fluoride manufacturers of toothpastes and other dental materials. When dentists endorse fluoride, people buy it.

Dentists report they are seeing more tooth decay among their soda drinking patients despite full fluoride “protection.” Ironically, many soft drinks and juices contain “optimal” fluoride levels because fluoridated tap water is used to make them.

And a study in the Journal of “Contemporary Dental Practice” shows that, among people who drink fluoridated water and use fluoride toothpaste, tooth decay still progresses after snacking on cola, apple juice or sweetened yogurt between meals. However, cavities remineralized (partially reversed) when snacks were whole milk, skim milk, 2% milk, cheddar cheese, plain yogurt and chocolate milk or no snacks at all.

An article in “RDH” (Registered Dental Hygienist) reports, “Dr. Carole Palmer, professor of nutrition and preventive dentistry at Tufts University, says, ‘We’re looking at why these things (nutrition in dentistry) have fallen by the wayside. There was a perception, perhaps, that fluoride had resolved the problem (of caries), but that’s far from the truth. A lack of research and funding in nutrition and oral connections has made it difficult to move forward. But nutritional counseling and diet counseling need to be important components of preventive dental care.’”

One such study presented at the International Association for Dental Research meeting this year shows, to no one's astonishment, that obesity and tooth decay are linked. There is also an epidemic of obesity in the U.S. according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Tooth decay is a disease of poor nutrition and high fluoride. Based on thirty years of study on .4 million children, Teotia and Teotia report "Our findings indicate that dental caries was caused by high fluoride and low dietary calcium intakes, separately and through their interactions."

Further substantiating the hypothesis that nutrition and not fluoride is the answer to less cavities: Ireland, 73% fluoridated since the 1960’s, has a higher tooth decay rate than five other European countries that don’t fluoridate the water, according to the June 30, 2001, Irish Independent. The Irish are also fluoride saturated; but tooth decay is still rampant in under-privileged areas of Ireland, they report.

In fact, an Irish legislator is calling for a ban on fluoridation in Ireland immediately.

Like most things American, fluoride is overblown, over-prescribed, and over-used. Along with the expansion of fast food restaurants and American waistlines, fluoride's expansion into the food supply via the water supply is out of control and may be creating instead of curing tooth decay. It's time to stop water fluoridation. Fluoride can't fix a poor diet.